


Space Explorers

by CruelisnotMason



Series: Space Explorers Verse [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adventure, Anal Sex, Cats, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstanding, Mutual Pining, Not Epilogue Compliant, One Night Stands, Past Relationships, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-War, Sci-Fi, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Time Travel, keith loves shiro, new worlds and planets, s8 doesn't exist, space travel, space trip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2019-09-02 11:02:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruelisnotMason/pseuds/CruelisnotMason
Summary: [Edited Version!]Shiro points at a star and says "Next time bring me there."___________________After the war, the Paladins scatter in every direction and even Shiro and Keith become more distant. Spending his days working at the Garrison seem less  tempting, so the Captain of Atlas the acts on a whim and grabs his best friend.Little does he know how a two-man-spaceroadtrip gets the ball rolling.





	1. Contain The Urge To Run Away

**Author's Note:**

> Good News: The story is officially completed and will be updated. 
> 
> It will take some time to upload the last part since I'm editing and illustrating the rest before I will upload the last chapter! For more information you can follow me on twitter <3
> 
> I'm also slowly sloooowly working my way through editing this monster. With the help of [Abbey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepia_cigarettes) I hope to edit it to my liking!

Chapter I: Contain the Urge To Run Away

* * *

* * *

Shiro’s first experience with space hadn’t gone _that well,_ and there were plenty of people to blame for that. The Galra, for instance, made his space-experience miserable considering he was their prisoner for a whole year.

But it was never space itself that Shiro didn't like.

 _Not_ **_hating_** space - a concept only he could comprehend. Everyone knew of his background story already and nobody got it. Most people slipped a mindless “I don’t know how you did it” and Shiro always wanted to answer that _yes, thanks, me neither if we're being honest. If anything, it may be the fact that I lost 90% of my memories of being a Galactic space prisoner when I crash landed into Earth. So, good thing that happened, right?_

Losing memories made survival, made _living_ easier – that’s all that mattered to him.

Back when he was young, a bratty idiot pilot who loved speed and risk more than he loved life, surviving never seemed crucial, and even now sometimes it still doesn't. What’s life worth if you lie in a hospital bed all along? What’s it worth, if it's in a scarcely lit cell? What's it worth if you never drive off that cliff? 

Matt points it out one time – that it’s just Shiro who _loves_ the risk.

“It’s not like that,” Shiro protests. “I’m not like that anymore - I _want_ to be safe.”

Matt simply raises an eyebrow and counters: “You may love safety now, but I know you. I know that you don’t love safety as much as you love having no regrets.”

Shiro stays silent, raises another spoonful of the cafeteria’s Hungarian goulash-soup to his mouth. He places the spoon into his mouth carefully and chews on the meat. When he looks up at Matt, his friend is grinning like he’s convinced that hehit bullseye.

*

After the war, the other Paladins scattered into every direction.

Some wanted to stay with their families and left the Garrison for good without a second thought. The jobs that were offered to them by the Garrison couldn’t change that, either. It’s unsurprising. Pidge, Lance, and Hunk all had been teenagers still when they first had to fight against the Galra. Now, they are tired of war and they have families to catch up and to stay with. And so they have, for several months now.

Shiro hasn’t. There is no family and certainly no ex-fiancé to go back to. He’s still there at the Garrison, the place he called home for the longest time. He can't be mad at the Paladins seeking the comfort of their families. It makes sense for them and he’s glad that his friends are getting the love they need.

When even Keith leaves the Garrison after a while – excusing himself to work with what is left of the Blades – Shiro starts thinking that he truly has been left by everyone. Shiro misses him but doesn’t tell him. He only hears it from other people when the Black Paladin has returned from a long mission. He returns directly to his shack in the desert to do...whatever he does. Shiro doesn't ask, doesn’t message. If they all need their room to breathe, he won’t be the one to press for contact.

Everyone leaving makes Shiro restless. It’s as if he stays back to wait for something else to happen.

At night, when he lies awake in his bed, he singles out the few memories he has left from Galra captivity. It’s in the darkness of his room when he remembers that the one thing that brought him peace during captivity was the thought of going home. Now with the Paladins gone, Shiro has every quiet moment to himself, has every minute of the day for him to heal. It’s in the nighttime that Shiro wonders how once the sweet thought of _going home_ could keep him alive for a year – when now the thought of being home for the rest of his life has turned into something _maddening._

*

The turning point rises on a late summer evening.

Someone he hadn’t seen in a while comes to visit. It’s because Shiro isn’t answering the door after knocking that Keith simply walks into the unlocked room. He spots him on the ground doing push-ups, working out manically without realizing Keith is in the room and watches him with growing concern.

“Shiro—?" His voice is raised at the end. “Is everything okay?”

Keith takes two steps into the middle of the room, squats down and grabs for his arm. He helps Shiro back on his legs.

Keith’s eyebrows furrow and he stares in Shiro’s face – that seems to break the spell. Shiro's eyes clear up and then he’s looking, _really_ looking at Keith. How long it has been since he saw him the last time? A month after he quit the Garrison, maybe. His hair has been cut a bit shorter...

Keith pinches his eyebrows, a small unsure smile wavering on his face. Shiro must look to him like he's on drugs or amphetamines but he doesn’t express any of these thoughts, only smiles a tired smile back, asks a shy, "Take my mind off for a while?" and leaves the answer to Keith's question open. 

Keith doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s late and after curfew – which means not a single Garrison cadet is lurking outside of their dorm. When they run down the corridors, Keith grasps his hand tightly; they are covered by the darkness of the night, it's quiet, too, the only sound muffled voices behind closed doors. 

Keith guides him towards the hangers because it’s an obvious choice for them. Shiro spots the new Garrison hoverbikes across the room. It has been a while since they’ve been purchased, but Shiro only sees them now – he observes Keith as he is walking towards them like he already knew where they were placed.

“You must agree that they look nice,” Keith says nonchalantly, slides one finger over one of the two hoverbikes in the left corner.

Although the surfaces are shiny, the most impressive thing is the wasteful modern technology with which they are equipped.

“They look _very new_ as well," Shiro says.

Too new to be ridden for a private late night trip. At first, Shiro feels like he should resist the temptation in Keith’s eyes. The Leader of Team Voltron knows he’s won Shiro over, when a small smile appears on his face. Keith knows it when he watches Shiro walking closer to the hoverbikes, eyes locked on the smooth surface and fingers ready to reach out to touch them.

“It's probably not a good idea to take them.” 

“Sir,” Keith starts and Shiro breaks a smile, “If _Admiral_ Shirogane is not allowed to take a brand new hoverbike on a ride, who really has any authorization at the Garrison?” Keith teases, and Shiro laughs a breathy and excited little laugh.

It’s the first time in months he has been at ease again and it’s all thanks to Keith. He wants to ask: _Why has it been months already and we are only together now?_ But he pushes the thought away – Keith is probably too busy to drop by more often, or maybe it’s Shiro who is busy and unreachable. He shakes off all the thoughts and questions, sliding into the seat of the hoverbike, ready to let mesmerizing stars and a crushing black sky take his mind off everything for a while.

It’s only cold when they are driving, and they _do_ drive fast.

“What a lame ass the Admiral has become!” Keith shouts over his shoulder and Shiro lets his engine roar in response.

He feels a sentimental ache for the simpler times when they were both younger, but it diminishes when Shiro remembers that back then he was also not as carefree as he should be by now.

“You’ll regret that when I catch up!” he yells from behind.

He _wants_ to catch up, leans forward, urges the bike to get faster - he’s concentrated - it’s like flying, under the stars, under the clouds and into the vast nothing of the desert, but-

He can't reach him - Keith is faster and takes off.

They drive until Keith finds their favorite spot and kills the engine. Shiro feels at peace because Keith took his time to bring him here, to see the stars raining down into the empty desert, so he can be swallowed by the vast nothingness. Keith chose this spot tonight and it's a special one, _their_ spot and Shiro is able to recognize it in an instant. 

There’s nothing to see in the desert but the stars, so they soon lie down into the cold ground and Shiro feels his chest lifting and his heart filling. His cheeks are red, and he looks up to the sky, too lost in thought. They later joke and talk and Shiro catches all of Keith’s gentle laughs with his eyes. Shiro observes him brushing a strand of his long thick hair back.

"Keith," he's breathless and giddy when he points at a star and says, "Next time take me there.”

*

On Monday morning, it is Iverson of all people who can’t wait to cross the line of their professional boss-mentor-relationship.

“Looks like you've not been sleeping well,” he says. Iverson grinds his teeth, and quickly adds a less concerned sounding, “Admiral”.

Shiro knows that the obligatory _“yes”_ and _“I'm fine, sir_ ” won’t convince anybody, least of all Iverson. He probably wants to believe that nothing is wrong and go on with his life. His former mentor knows better than to pressure him but leaves the office only _after_ suggesting to _maybe get professional help_ and Shiro, respecting the opinion of his superior, considers it.

If he's honest, deep down he already knows where the problem lies - so what can talking to another person possibly contribute to his well-being? Instead of getting help, he has to simply help himself _,_ Shiro thinks. He only needs to change some things.

It starts small. When he isn’t working at the Garrison, training or teaching cadets, he is calculating - calculating and researching, until it becomes bigger - _writing plans_ and filling folders with them. He spends his free time thinking to himself in the most poetic way - Matt would snort if he told him those particular thoughts - that he’s taking his faith in his own hand, with the art of planning and calculating, _the art of war and life_ equally.

  
He messages Pidge a couple of times, then **calls** her - first and foremost because she actually knows what Shiro has to consider when he’s doing some technical calculations and engineering plans. That’s not all, though. He misses his friends, misses Pidge, too. The Paladins have been and still are like a family to him, but he rarely sees them or calls them nowadays. His friendship with Hunk and Lance never has been close, but Pidge? The responsibility he felt when he met her first turned into admiration for her strength. He saw in her what he saw in Sam Holt too - a sturdy character, good morals and eccentricity, but most important: someone who could become a good friend.

*

At his arrival in front of Keith's old desert shack, he is prepared with his calculations, with his folders, with everything - but without a real plan for what to tell him. It’s late at night and he’s surprised to see that the lights are on. Shiro is nervous, but focused. Maybe it’s all too much, maybe it’s ridiculous to suggest even.

 _If you worry too much about what could go wrong, you might miss out on doing something great,_ he tells himself, like Sam Holt told him, like he told Katie.

It _will_ be something great.

He knocks at the door and feels his heart pumping.

*

Two glasses of water and half an hour later, Shiro is vibrantly buzzing and exhausted at the same time. He laid it all out in front of Keith - talked and explained continuously. Keith doesn’t look skeptical, in fact, he doesn’t look like he has any feeling about Shiro’s plans at all.

"You think the Garrison would sponsor building a ship _and_ a space exploration?" Keith's tone isn’t surprised or doubting, if anything, it is neutral.

Shiro nods. “Pretty sure, they would.”

Shiro talked him through endless records of his calculations for a new ship and his plans to go on a new mission. He explained how important it was for Earth to keep exploring space and strengthen the Coalition.

“There’s simply a lot we don’t know yet, and I know Earth tends to have suspicions against anything that’s outside of our own solar system. Getting around, gathering data and talking to other outer space people is a strategy to include us more into interstellar relations, maybe educate Earth and reduce bias against space and alien life.”

It's getting alarming – Keith stays silent when he nods and takes the folders from Shiro's shaking hands. 

He feels his eyes getting dry from observing Keith’s head bowed over the calculations for material needed and his abstract on space exploration research after the Big Galactical War against the Empire, when coalitions and interstellar relationships _should_ be a priority. Keith has been quiet for a while now, eyes scanning the folder, thumb flipping through the pages, scanning every page, brain rattling. He finally looks up, eyebrows furrowed. Shiro gulps.

"You factored in two people. Are you going to tell me who's going to come with you?" His tone sounds like he doesn’t know, but the grin on his face tells otherwise.

In the last couple of years, Shiro has seen himself as the sole reason Keith had gone through more than he should have: It was Shirowho Keith found and whom he accompanied to and into the Blue Lion. It was Shiro who Keith had to save again and again, only to receive a painful scar across his cheek and a traumatic experience from fighting Shiro’s evil clone in return.

Shiro feels guilty, but maybe not guilty enough. He knows Keith was and has been the reason Shiro lives and breathes today, and is fully capable to consider crazy and reckless space travel again. And if that wasn’t enough already, Shiro has the audacity to ask _him_ to accompany him this time, as well. 

Shoving those intrusive thoughts quickly aside, Shiro is well aware that he has to ask Keith about this properly. He bites his lip, faintly notices how his heart beats faster than it has at any meeting or during any public speech he ever held before.

"Keith, do you want to come to space with me?" he asks, voice determined even though in reality, he feels unsure.

Maybe he sounds _too_ serious or perhaps not serious enough; he thinks about taking Keith’s hand, moving closer to show him _how_ serious this is to him. He doesn’t want to come on _too_ strong.

"Shiro," Keith exhales and breaks the downwards spiral of Shiro’s thoughts. There's a positive hint of a smile in his voice. "You sound so serious, as if you were proposing,” Keith snorts and Shiro does not, just stares, cheeks red. 

"I know I’m asking a lot," he takes the folder out of Keith's hands – he might as well run away and hide now. 

But Keith notices it, of course, and is quick to reassure him. "I'm sorry, Shiro," Keith says and at realizing how _that_ sounds, he adds even faster: “Honestly, there's nothing I would want more."

He pries the folder from Shiro's hand and looks at it again. His forehead is in wrinkles for one moment again, but then he smiles down at the folder and flips through it again.

Shiro doesn’t know what to make out of all of this.

*

To get to the outer galaxy they have to build a new ship. The Garrison’s ships only reach the edge of the solar system, and they do so, slowly. Although Earth has been a friendly haven for everyone from the outer galaxies, they are still really reluctant about sending people to other planets themselves. 

Shiro and Keith need a ship that shoots through space with more than fifty thousand miles per hour, and frankly, that’s hard to find on Earth in its current state.

They could try and buy a ship, but it surely wouldn’t be as efficient as what the Garrison could build with taxation money and donations. If they build it from scratch, then there’s a possibility that they can connect the ship’s control to Shiro's arm (which would be a huge advantage). Building the ship on government-funded expenses and staying in his job at the Garrison for the time being would also be the best option for Shiro.

"I'm in. But it will take months. You think I can get my job at the Garrison back in the meantime?" Keith asks.

Shiro wonders not for the first time why Keith had ever quit his job in the first place but doesn’t ask. 

"It'll be a piece of cake,” he grins instead of asking. "So, we're doing this?"

He takes the folder yet again from Keith’s strong grip. Keith laughs and Shiro can’t stop looking at him.

"We're doing this." 

Their hands touch. 

*

It is months until the IVC (Intergalactic Voltron Coalition) pushes their proposal through – disguised as a 'foreign politics' proposal. 

Shiro's plans are accepted and the Garrison begins with the ship building. Keith gets his job back.

“They didn’t even ask me why I quit in the first place,” Keith tells him over dinner and grins – it’s an open secret that the Admiral pulled some strings.

Shiro – again – doesn't ask either. To him it makes sense that Lance, Hunk and Katie quit their jobs at the Garrison; their families live long car rides away from the Garrison. Being able to be with their families means not being able to physically be at the Garrison.

Pidge’s whole family left the Garrison and opened their own, incomparably small research center in the north of the country. Sam Holt was stripped of his rank after the war. So neither Katie nor Sam had real ties with the Garrison anymore. 

Keith on the other hand was free to go anywhere. His mother Krolia still had unresolved business with the Blades before she could come and live with him. Other than that, she visited her son from time to time and told him he should stay on Earth and Keith visited her, too. Except for Krolia (and Kolivan, now and then), Keith doesn't need to be in a certain place, and for the love of God, there was nothing at the desert shack that Keith couldn't do at the Garrison, Shiro thinks.

After the war, everyone scattered into different directions. Everyone needed a break – especially Keith. He stayed at the Garrison for two months and then moved to the shack out of the blue.

A few times, Shiro thought about asking Keith to come live with him instead. He mulled over the words several times. _Come live with me here, you don't have to work, just stay with me._ Maybe a small “I need you by my side,” to convince him. He never told him and eventually stopped thinking about it.

War was hard, but sometimes human relationships – to Shiro – were harder, especially the ones left undefined. 

When he takes his job back, Keith also moves back to the Garrison.

*

They sit in the cafeteria, both their plates in front of them. Shiro eats silently and listens to Keith’s soothing voice. He missed it. The shorter man looks up to him, his eyes gentle, with a few wrinkles at their corners. There’s something vulnerable in his gaze and Shiro notices for the first time today, that his eyes are red.

“Are you—” he starts and Keith raises an eye brow at him. He coughs into his fist, hiding his lack of instant bravery, and starts again, “Are you okay?”

Keith’s smile drops for a second and he runs his fingers through his hair. “I think so,” he says, and then, when he notices Shiro’s concerned face: “I’m okay.”

Shiro only nods, not truly satisfied with his answer. He continues eating his dinner. He lets his eyes wander through the dining room, he’s glancing at many faces, some he recognizes and some he doesn’t, until his eyes stop at an angry looking pair of eyes. He doesn’t know the guy, but he’s sure he has seen him before – his face looks familiar.

He doesn’t know why someone would look that angry over dinner, but maybe he wasn’t? Maybe it was just his face.

When he notices Shiro’s gaze, he quickly looks down, then stands up and proceeds to walk out.

Shiro decides to ignore it. Maybe it’s someone from before the war who wasn't too keen on Keith? Maybe someone who doesn’t like him? Someone who just looked a little bit angry, nothing more. He observes a small group of people – which he assumes to be the guy’s friends – follow him. 

“When do you think we’ll be ready?”

Keith’s voice brings him back to the present. Shiro shrugs and smirks when he looks at him. “I hope as fast as possible.”

“Impatient,” Keith teases over the table and puts a spoon full of vegetables into his mouth.

When Shiro looks at Keith’s face, he notices something new. He had changed. Long gone is the teenager who was easily overwhelmed with all the negative feelings in his heart, who picked fights with others or got picked on. Shiro sometimes wonders where all that anger went so that only the gentle person in front of him was left.

 _No one,_ Shiro thinks, _could ever hate Keith for who he is._

Later, Keith tells him what Krolia has been up to lately and that she’s happy about what the two of them are planning because for her it will be easier to get ahold of Keith when he’s in the outer galaxies, too. She already suggested planets and galaxies that are worth a visit or in general need of help. She also talks to Keith about the state of outer space (it’s much safer now than under the Empire). Shiro listens to what Keith tells him, face in awe, eyes hung on his eyes or lips, until his mind drifts and he thinks about asking him, if it was _him_ he was running from when he hid in the desert shack for the last few months. 

Shiro snaps out of it. There are other important things now, he has priorities of course. He also doesn’t feel like cornering Keith, because that has _never_ been their thing, not at all. He waits and Keith talks, that’s how it has been. Always.

“I _really_ missed you,” Shiro suddenly interrupts him. Keith doesn’t seem to mind though, corner of his mouth pulling up.

“Hey,” he answers, eyes soft and with a hand reaching out for Shiro. He hesitates for a few seconds, before he says: “I missed you, too.”

Shiro squeezes his hand for a second and changes the topic. He asks what Keith wants to do in space, and where he wants to go, tries to talk about everything else that comes to his mind because there had been something uncertain in Keith’s eyes that he can’t quite put a finger on it. It’s an uncertainty in Keith towards him that he has never seen before.


	2. Levitate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everday Life of Space Travel & Their First Destination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the wonderful [Abbey ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepia_cigarettes/profile)for the amazing beta-ing! 
> 
> Woooh, finally Chapter 2! I worked hours on this, so if you have a comment to spare, go ahead and leave it~  
> School's incredibly busy and I wish I could sit 10 hours a day and write or draw Sheithy stuff, but yeah, reality doesn't look like that atm lmao.
> 
> I btw will always pick song titles or quotes as a Chapter title - this chapter's title is "Levitate" and it's this song I'm referencing:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6szWeR8B6HA
> 
> If anyone is interested in beta'ing this, go ahead, I've got nothing to lose.  
> What else is there to say? Please enjoy reading!

# Chapter II - Levitate

* * *

* * *

The day of the departure keeps coming closer.

In preparation for the upcoming flight, the Garrison reminds them that only necessities are allowed on board. Headquarters make sure to stipulate those and other regulations, giving a casual reminder that this isn’t just a _holiday_ trip to space, but actually hard work too. Added to that is the fact that they have to negotiate things too. Keith suspects the negotiation meetings only mean to be exhausting to get back at him for both quitting his job and coming back to the Garrison later. Shiro says Iverson isn’t resentful, but Keith begs to differ.

“Bringing the space wolf _is_ a necessity,” Keith reinforces in yet another meeting. “We have to prepare an appropriate place for him, too.” 

He wants to have the final decision in at least _some_ meetings. There are already too many in which he has none. 

“Seconding that.”

Thankfully, Shiro supports him. “The space wolf is an important part of our personal safety. We can’t fly without him.”

Shiro explains it to them - and together they are convincing enough. It isn't a small fight: A space wolf and space for the space wolf on the spaceship meant higher end costs for the Garrison.

Shiro attends the meeting to support Keith, but also because he likes Kosmo. In his eyes, he’s not only a wonderful and interesting creature, but also loyal and protective of Keith. If it isn't for him, who would look after Keith?

His teleportation skills are on the mark, too and he’s cuddly, even though a bit drooly. Naturally, Shiro loves him. Even more, he is pretty sure that the space wolf has a soft spot for him too or _had_ until recently.

The delusion that the space wolf adores him was shattered a few weeks before the mission: Keith went to Shiro’s flat at the Garrison to check in on him and chat. When they spent an hour talking, Keith decided to spend the whole afternoon at Shiro's. After a while, Kosmo appears out of thin air (literally) to laze around, too. While Keith was at his desk, scribbling a few lists, Shiro sat on the floor. The space wolf lay down to slumber, not far from him.

He looked comfortable – Shiro wanted to pet him and reached out, but a low growl emerged from the animal. Keith looked up to him in surprise and saw Shiro holding his hand mid-air. 

“Maybe he’s having a bad day,” Keith said, completely thrown off by Kosmo’s behavior.

Shiro slowly pulled back - he didn’t want to lose his left hand, too. “Might be.”

But even as he said it, Shiro did not believe his own words. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kosmo observing his every move, ears flat against his head.

He just hoped he and the wolf would get used to each other again.

The expenses for the mission aren’t enormous, but they exist.

Media coverage helps – details about the mission are broadcasted daily in a bigger frame to the outside world than what they hear within the Garrison. It’s no surprise that on the day of the departure, radio and television reporters spread out over the Garrison’s realm, shuffle around, take pictures and short films of everything. Luckily, only a few ask for interviews.

The Paladins come to see them off before launch. As Defenders of the Universe, they are famous around the world, and so they pull at least some of the attention from Shiro and Keith. 

They all stand on the platform in a close circle and catch up, but it’s not enough, not enough as they exchange a few words until the chatter dies down and they are ready to say their goodbyes.

“We’re not going for forever. A few months only.” Keith folds his arms, but Hunk pulls him into a heartfelt hug anyways.

“I doubt we can trust that. I, for my part, thought you’d stay on Earth in first place,” Pidge tells Shiro with a small grin. The smallest Paladin draws Shiro into a hug too and smiles into his shoulder while holding him.

Shiro holds her tight, nods into her neck.

“Sorry for that. We’re going to talk from time to time when I’m in space, right?” he asks her and pulls away.

Pidge nods enthusiastically.

They hug Lance and Allura, too. Allura has been in and out from planet Earth for a few months now, commuting between the other Paladins’ home planet and the outside world planets. Her work is important and demanding and yet she has always time to come back and visit Lance in the end.

“Thanks for coming, Princess,” Keith tells her and then looks to Lance, hesitates before he speaks. “You too.”

Lance stuffed his hands into his pockets before, but now he’s stretching his whole body and his arms over his head. “We endured a long fucking way to see you two off,” he says, “I hope you both appreciate it.”

“Shut up, _Lance_. I just said, ‘ _Thank you’_!”

Keith sounds serious first, but then he breaks into giggles and Lance pulls him into his arms. They hug, too. Shiro wonders if it’s the first time he ever saw them exchanging that kind of friendly gesture.

It’s not like _Kerberos_ , he tells himself.

Earth’s technology is far more advanced since he was praised as the youngest pilot in the Garrison. Nobody is nervous about the take off. They wave down to the ground, nonetheless, knowing full well that the Paladins will only see them on a TV screen later, when they are far away from their place of departure.

Shiro and Keith get seated, then there’s the launch and the Garrison becomes a tiny house in a toy desert. They breach Earth’s atmosphere, too, but it’s like they did this a thousand times already.

Keith’s eyes are locked on the control pad and he flips a few switches on and off, which reminds Shiro that he has to check the outer temperature and that he needs to do something in general, too.

“Everyone was so _nervous_ right before the launch back then,” he adds, eyes now fixed on the monitors.

“You too?”

Shiro doesn’t know where his own cockiness comes from that catches Keith off guard, but he instantly regrets it. Keith’s face is red, and he obviously doesn’t know how react _or_ answer. He doesn’t look at Shiro. It might be a sensitive memory for him, it _must_ be… Shiro didn’t _plan_ to embarrass him.

Keith shrugs for the lack of a good answer he can come up with and they both continue working on the control pads in silence, looking at the screens now and then; and when they talk again, it’s about a something else.

*

They are a few hours in, and by then it’s just routine. There’s nothing really happening; they are sitting in their seats, watching the screens, exchanging words.

No enemies, no one causing a ruckus. Not Zarkon, not Haggar. Nothing but stars out there in space. Merely a ship that is quickly identified as a ship of the Coalition and nebulas accompanying them on their way.

They know that it will take a few days to reach their first destination, a small planet with similar factors and conditions as Earth. It’s located in Earth’s direct neighborhood, the Andromeda Galaxy. No matter how fast their Garrison ship is, they still need some time to get there and with no danger far and wide, there is only so much they can do in the meantime.

Shiro tries to befriend the wolf - Keith’s wolf – in some desperate attempt to make him like him with bribery: He packed a good five pounds of dog treats for him after writing down a list of Keith’s flavor and brand suggestions and needing a whole day to shop to get all of them. When he thinks about how Kosmo acts like he’s a stranger to him, Shiro wants to desperately prove the wolf otherwise.

“He didn’t have any issues with you before,” Keith remarks and yawns as he watches them both. The increase and yawns and droopy eyes show clearly how tired he is. It’s not a surprise, since they had to get up early for the launch first thing in the morning.

Shiro waggles a bit of beef jerky in front of the wolf’s eyes while he squats in front of him. The wolf is comfortably sitting in his bed, and his eyes follow the food, but then only stare into Shiro’s face. It makes him uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” Shiro says softly.

The wolf looks at him with big eyes and even when Shiro doesn’t project or over interpret his expression, he'd probably say they look hurt. He finally tosses the meat towards Kosmo, but even when it drops down on the ground right in front of him, the wolf doesn’t budge.

“Do you think it’s because he hasn’t seen me for a while?”

Keith tips back in his chair, eyes on Shiro. He’s thinking.

That doesn’t sound good. Shiro sighs.

Giving up on the space wolf, he gets back to his seat next to Keith. Their spaceship is nowhere as spacious as the Castle of Lions or the Atlas were, so correspondingly, they _will_ spend a lot of time in the control room. Both their rooms connect to the control room directly and so does a small kitchen with a table. There’s a bottom level inside the ship where the training and storage rooms are located – for possible goods they want to bring back to Earth, and accordingly also goods to trade with (if needed).

Three destinations in total is what they planned for now, not including an international space station somewhere at the end of the Nebula Belt.

Shiro’s gaze flickers to Keith now and then, not turning his head, because he doesn’t want his friend to notice. In the quietness of the control room,

It has always been too much.

The Galactic War has been over for more than a year now, with the dark forces defeated. Shiro could feel more at ease, but he doesn’t. Sometimes it’s Haggar that haunts his dreams, sometimes it’s a corrupted version of himself standing in front of him, holding the Black Paladins Bayard (or is it the Red Paladin’s?) in front of his face, ready to slice him, through and through.

He doesn’t talk about any of those nightmares. No one does.

When his eyes wander from Keith’s scraggy black hair on his head, down to the gentle curve of his eyebrows and his thick, black eyelashes, further down to his rosy lips and cheekbones, to the collar bone standing out—

At first glance he’s looking the same he has been in the few months they spent time together. But there are slight nuances, his expression, the small wrinkles at his eyes that indicate his change, too.

Shiro remembers the Keith who was younger, who was good at hiding one part of his feelings but not hiding another. Shiro likes to hope that that changed for him. The angry teenager who has been hurt and betrayed several times back then was who he wanted to help. Because at first glance, he saw something in him just too similar to Shiro himself. All too familiar, seeing that tough shell thinly draped over an already broken heart.

Now that they are weightless carrying through space, approaching different galaxies, Shiro is reminded about it again – how he and Keith ended up in an intergalactic war involuntarily; and then thinks of the irony of it all: asking his longtime friend to go on a space journey with him alone, sitting here with him, again in a ship, on their own terms, this time.

He glances at Keith, then again, he doesn’t.

Before he can prevent it, he starts getting _nervous._ He notices it from a mile away. Maybe it’s the clone’s body, not _his_ body tingling, maybe it’s because even when Keith returned to the Garrison, they didn’t see each other often, only occasionally, or—

“What are you thinking about?” Keith interrupts his train of thought.

He still looks at the screen, pushes a few buttons.

“N-nothing. Really.”

“Doesn’t feel like nothing.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Because you’ve been staring and then looking away at me for a few minutes… It’s okay if you haven’t noticed yourself.”

Keith voice sounds smug and even though he’s still not looking at Shiro, there’s a subtle blush on his cheeks. Shiro’s mind grinds through a halt, searches for anything that might help him interpret this situation and comes up empty.

“Oh.” It’s not exactly a witty response.

Shiro feels lightheaded, wants to ask _what are **you** thinking about, or what do you think I’m thinking abo-_

There’s a sudden, steady beep that saves Shiro from himself and his possible actions and he’s grateful for that. It’s the wristband, vibrating and beeping. He slides his sleeve upwards and casts a look down at where the wristband is located, at his left hand.

“Ah,” Shiro breathes and pushes a single button.

He’s already used to the notification setting, even though it’s close to a reminder from the past, a reminder of sickness and certain, creeping decay.

Too late he sees the way

“Ah, no! It’s just a timer,” he quickly explains.

Keith relaxes a bit, closes his mouth, but still doesn’t say anything. Shiro can read the fear in his eyes and wishes he couldn’t. He did not mean to worry him.

Sooner or later he has to tell him what the new wristband is about, but he pushes the talk about it away first, and then pushes further and further again, dumping the topic over the edge in one swift go.

“I didn’t tell you until now, but I kind of made a deal with the Garrison.” He’s fumbling with his hands, and Keith’s gaze flickers down to them. Shiro exhales and inhales deeply, before he continues. “They urged me to join a program - as a kind of, how do I say, safe guard.”

“What?” Keith’s tone is high pitched, even though he’s angry.

Shiro is not clear enough. Of course he isn’t.

“I’m doing therapy.”

Keith’s face is impassive first.

“…That’s good. _Is it_ good? It must be.” He crosses his arms, looks on the floor. He looks up again, a wary smile on his lips that disappears. Then, a smile again.

The air around them is tense, but Shiro knows from a look on Keith’s face, that he doesn’t think it’s weird, that he won’t judge him. He’s just as he and Shiro always are – accepting and waiting, with open arms.

Still, a minute passes where they don’t say anything. Keith clear’s his throat again.

“Yeah, so you go do that, I’ll watch the status?” he offers and turns to the panel.

Keith is trying hard to make it less weird for Shiro. He appreciates it.

“Yeah,” Shiro whispers softly and sits with him for a few more minutes before he gets up. “Keith?” he asks. The black, tousled head turns to him. “I know you won’t, but unless there’s an emergency, uhm, don’t come into the room?”

The corners of his mouth quirks up and he nods. “Goes unsaid.”

Getting therapy in space might not be too different from getting it on Earth.

Shiro grabs a small data pad from his bed and puts it up on his desk. He’s getting comfortable in his chair in front of it. The room is quiet, since neither the turbines’ nor the engine’s sound are audible like they would be on older models.

Shiro steadies himself, takes a deep breath, dials a number on his pad.

On the small screen a human lady appears - she’s dark skinned and seems to be in her forties. Shiro saw her once before, when they talked on Earth. Having a familiar face should be good, but it doesn’t calm him at all.

“Hello.” The sound echoes through the room. Shiro puts the volume lower, then smiles politely at her and greets her back.

“How can I address you, Admiral?” she asks him casually, her tone already soothing him.

“Shiro is fine.”

She smiles a big toothy grin, brown eyes captivating and relaxing. Shiro feels how the tension in his shoulder is easing. He watches her brown, curly hair move with her slow nods and trusts, that this will be fine.

“Good. Shiro, how are you doing today?”

*

  
Shiro falls asleep afterwards – it was more exhausting than he’d ever guessed. He hopes Keith doesn’t mind him dozing off for a while, but he desperately needs it.

*

He awakes groggily an hour later and leaves his room to find Keith watching the monitors. He’s looking up and then down for a few moments, scribbling. Shiro approaches him curiously. There’s a lot he doesn’t know about him, even after knowing him for years.

He looks over his shoulder to see a small doodle done with a pencil. It’s the desert, he recognizes, with two people at the bottom—

“Looks good.” It slips from his mouth before he can stop it.

Keith jumps. He slams the sketchpad closed and turns his head.

“Y…you’re back.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to look.” Shiro says.

He slumps into his own seat next to Keith and closes his eyes, still in a small haze from sleeping and from having therapy drain his remaining energy.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I should have asked.”

“It’s fine - you just startled me.”

“Did you always draw?”

Keith shoves the sketchpad under his seat and leans back, too. Shiro feels guilty for interrupting him and hopes that Keith can feel comfortable enough to continue doing what he likes, even when he’s there.

“Started around the same time as the Blades missions.” He puts a hand behind the back of his head and looks to Shiro, then back outside. “I heard Hunk once say that cooking makes him take his mind off for some time, so I tried to find something similar, to, you know, get my mind off things,” he explains, eyes staring into the emptiness.

“Good call you decided to draw.”

“Yeah,” Keith laughs, “no cooking for us, right?”

It makes Shiro laugh, too.

“But yeah, it’s good.” He fumbles with his hands for the lack of knowing what else to do now that he doesn’t draw.

“I’m learning something new about you every day,” Shiro tells him and closes his eyes.

He still feels Keith’s gaze at him, purple hitting with all the intensity.

When he turns his head, Keith is smiling slightly. Shiro stares drowsily. They stay like that in silence, for a few minutes, before Keith clears his throat.

“Shiro…” he starts. “Do you really not remember?”

Shiro doesn’t know what he means by that, carefully sifts through every memory that comes to his mind. Remember what?

“What do you mean?”

Keith hesitates.

“I asked you, drew you once.”

Shiro does not answer.

“You posed for me, you know.”

Shiro stays silent, mind rattling. He _did_?

When he thinks about Keith, there’s no memory of posing or drawing. But maybe it’s a memory from when they were younger, before captivity or the war…but nothing comes up, until—

It strikes him, “ _Ah-_ ”

“W..what?”

“Uhm, it…” How to explain without hurting his or Keith’s feelings? There’s simply no way around it.

“It was the clone. I remember now.”

He knows Keith is at loss for what to say, so Shiro quickly tries to change the quality of their conversation, tries to say something to help ease this situation despite being tired and incapable of thinking—

“Next time I can be your model again?”

Keith doesn’t give an answer. He doesn’t expect him to.

They are silent, long enough for Shiro’s thoughts to revolve around the clone and his impact on Keith. He wonders if Keith separates those memories of him and his clone or if he throws them all together. He couldn’t blame him, if he’s honest. How can you separate memories from someone that looks, talks, and walks like him?

If he’s trying hard, he can remember the feeling of being not alone in a body that isn’t his, of sharing memories involuntarily, drinking in all he had missed. Many of those memories had been with the Paladins or were about war. There’s one that’s especially hurtful – Haggar – but Shiro manages to push it away from him. There’s nothing daily, nothing casual in those memories, as if those simple moments had been guarded, but then—

The memory that pops up is one of those. Someone laughing (Is it Keith? Is it Shiro himself? No, that can’t be…), they are laughing about something. When the darkness rushes in and clears up again, the voices become louder; too late he notices it’s a memory filled with Keith.

His face, his hands, the hair that falls into his face – it’s him. It’s not how Shiro looked at him, _no_.

It’s the clone looking at his long eyelashes and his mouth, the clone’s – _his_ eyes – roaming over Keith’s body, not shy about checking him out. Shiro wants to push it away, says a mantra in his head, _it’s not his gaze, he has never looked at him like that_ , it’s the _clone_ , _not him_ and–

A painful sound escapes his throat.

“Shiro, are you in pain?” he hears Keith say, voice full of concern.

It slowly brings him back to the present. He slowly realizes that he had closed his eyes and drifted off. His jaw is tense, and his teeth are gritted.

“I’m fine,” he answers, rubs his eyes and looks at the control panel to find his focus again.

*

They arrive soon at their first destination, within the third outer ring on the Vertagan Crossroad. They leave the first days of simple routine, work out and casual chatter behind, including Shiro second call to his therapist. Quiet days are filled with Keith drawing, checking the status of the ship, an occasional call from their friends or Krolia.

Once, they need to check for an alert notification that pops up on the control panel. They suit up and shuffle through the hatch into space. Outside it’s dark, and they see the blinking light of stars scattered across the universe – it’s so bright it’s almost blinding – with the Milky Way is visible.

The electronic display on the outside of the ship was hit by a small rock and is blinking rapidly. Keith types something in, throws a glance over his back to Shiro. He nods.

“Should be fine now.”

They should go back in after fixing what needed to be fixed but outside of the ship, it’s magical. It’s quiet there, we’re the float in the bare nothing. Quieter than any planet could ever be.

Shiro floats next to Keith, eyes fixed on the Milky Way. A calmness washes over him while he’s looking at something so familiar but so far, the beauty of it all showering him with all kinds of feelings. Keith is with him, he’s there right next to him. He had said yes to all of Shiro’s silly plans and yes to spending time with him here. It’s a promise, promising than every single day after the war when they reached their goal and paddled into long awaited safety.

Did they lose what they had before?

Keith is different, grows and changes over time, but when he looks at Shiro, there’s always something familiar, a constant in Shiro’s life swallowed by two round, black pupils. It’s the sight of two stars looking at him and giving himself away like an open book.

Eyes like stars full of love.

The distance is full of blinking stars too and Earth stopped being visible to their human eyes. It adds to the giddiness of adventure and the promise of the unknown.

“Beautiful,” Keith exhales next to him, breath hitting the glass of his helmet from the inside. Only the steady in- and exhales through their communicators are audible.

Their bodies feel like nothing, their minds like an outer body experience. They are just levitating in the cosmic everything, between up and down and forward and backwards. Shiro trusts the suit to carry his weight and the weightlessness of the dark nothing to support him. He’s leaning back so he can simply float on his back and _enjoy_.

“Beautiful”, he too says, unable to tear his gaze away from Keith.

They forget the time – time means nothing here – outside of the ship, stay long enough until the uncertainty is dizzying. Shiro loses his balance, but Keith catches him before he can drift off too far.

Keith is looking at him through the glass of the helmet, purple eyes calm but intense. Shiro cannot stop himself from looking, thinks that even if there were a Galra cruiser hovering over them, he could not take his eyes off him.

“Let’s go back in,” Keith finally breaks the moment and draws him back to the ship’s entrance. Shiro doesn’t let go of his hand, only until they reach the hatch and safety of the inside and crawl in.

They reach Planet Kro’weksulid in under an hour and with it it’s buzzling city. While Voltron had gained and lost its credibility and prominence during the war, it’s still well-known after.

They get some fanfares and a speech, even though they count merely two out of seven people from the original Team Voltron. The ceremony is not needed in any way, but a friendly welcome and a political standard at the same time.

the emperor of Kro’weksulid introduces. Another fanfare is played, the people are cheering.

It’s a planet with skin and formless inhabitants, so it’s a bit hard to know where Keith and Shiro need to look when they are spoken to. Some residents wear clothes, making it easier to know where they stand (or float) but some…don’t.

“White Paladin, huh,” Shiro mutters under his breath later.

Keith beams. “Figures that the _Captain of the ATLAS_ isn’t really known to them, so they just added another Paladin.”

The Emperor greets the inhabitants too, then turns to Shiro and Keith.

“Did you know that there’s a special history that binds our planet to the Earthlings?” He gets right to the point, voice cheerily.

“Uhm, uh. No,” Shiro answers and throws Keith an uncertain look.

The Red (or Black) Paladin shakes his head, mouth slightly opened.

“It’s not a history…that we’re especially proud of,” the Emperor continues.

Suddenly, a bright green cloud appears around him.

“What’s that?” Keith asks flabbergasted, but the Emperor only laughs.

“Ah, you Earthlings don’t know, but other than you we’re producing a source of energy when we create emotions.” He’s looking at them expectantly.

“Gas?” Shiro helps.

“Oh yeah, right,” he chuckles. “Gas! Oh yes. That’s how you Earthlings would call it.”

Shiro carefully casts his eyes at Keith to find out if he thinks it’s as hilarious as he thinks. Keith puts his perfect poker-face to show and doesn’t meet his gaze. Spoilsport.

“Anyways,” the Emperor says, the small cloud quickly disappearing, “We haven’t… _really_ worked through the history that Kro’weksulid has with Earth – you, Paladins, might have been a small little nothing back then, because if we’re honest, it already has been a while. Five, no, seven…let’s say _uncountable_ deca-phoebes passed by when Kro’weksulid,” he’s clearing his throat, “did this shameful thing. We want to work through it together with Earth. Working on our shared history.”

Keith and Shiro exchange a few gazes back and forth.

“Uhm, okay”, Keith says, now looks back to Shiro, “Was your majesty present then?”

“No, but our ancestors were.”

“What happened?” Shiro asks.

“Since centuries, our people have been intrigued with Earth and Earthlings, it’s clearly not a surprise, because our people and the Earthlings practically breathe the same molecular cocktail, we both live in the same quantum of the outer colliding nebula center…we have scholars that have researched these subjects and written books about the similarities between Kro’weksulid and Earth. There are movies for mere amusement even…but in reality, we always lacked real knowledge!”

The Emperor goes on after they both stay silent, overwhelmed with the information.

“So, a scientist from Kro’weksulid, they are called Or’trix’ir _of_ Kro’weksulid, once went pretty… _how to say_ … _cuckoo_ and took a ship to Earth to… _how should I voice this_ … uhm, _abduct_ a human.”

Shiro and Keith turn their heads to each other, eyes wide.

The reason they chose to go to Kro’weksulid, was to do a bit of (safe) researching and cataloguing the planet and secondly, to make a diplomatic call to their nearest neighbors. No one prepared them for _this_ kind of situation. Especially not since they are in the middle of the official reception from the planet.

One of the diplomat joins them and – only visible through a bright yellow cloud – stands next to them. “Gentle-humans, we may now open the banquet.”

Keith looks tense. “Actually…” he starts but Shiro puts a hand on his shoulder. He clasps his mouth shut.

“ _It’s okay,_ ” Shiro mumbles into his ear. “ _Keep your eyes open, though.”_

“Yeah, we may,” Keith agrees and forces a smile at the Emperor, then at the diplomat (at least he thinks he’s looking into the right direction.

If in the past, the people on this planet abducted a human only for the sake of science, there’s no saying they wouldn’t do a similar thing now to. Not when one and a half human were dumb enough to walk right into their non-existent arms. They have to play this smart.

They eat as little from the beautifully arranged hors d’oeuvre as possible during the celebration and don’t drink anything either.

A couple of hours into the festivities, there is dancing and singing, unmelodic music that reminds . Thankfully nobody forces them to dance and they can investigate the “shared history”, how they call it, more.

“So, the human. Was he brought back?”, Shiro asks as inconspicuous as possible after he’s seated between Keith and the Emperor.

They put plates with food in front of them, and Keith doesn’t touch any of it.

“Yeah, yeah…” the Emperor starts and Shiro sees the small crown of his head wobbling, as he continues to shake his head. “...No, no…no. I’m sorry to inform that he was _not_ brought back.”

Shiro throws Keith another gaze, while he’s sitting tightlipped next to him, hands on his Blade.

The Emperor continues: “The Earthling was integrated into our society. First a little bit…against his will _of course_ but he adapted pretty quickly. He was treated like a god on Kro’weksulid, believe me, Paladins. He was our only source of information about Earth, which is why we’re so grateful the day, when even two Earthlings visit us as our honorable guests, has come!”

“So…”

Even though he opens his mouth, Shiro is still at loss for words. At this point he doesn’t doubt anymore that it wasn’t just a legend, but the uncoated truth. They took a random person from Earth who might have lived his last years more or less happy on this foreign planet. It makes it a lot more plausible too that no one has ever yet heard of that. One random guy disappearing 300 years ago, and nobody misses him. Shiro still questions the argument behind it, but at this point, they can’t change what happened.

“We have some of his diaries still – for your arrival, Paladins. We dug them out and preserved them in their original form. We want to give something back to you.”

Shiro nods and Keith doesn’t look as tense as before. The people of Kro’weksulid don’t seem to be hostile by intent. It’s a questionable thing to do, but. Yeah.

“Uhm, thanks for that, Emperor. Is it okay if tomorrow we will search the area and do some research on our own?” Shiro asks politely, hoping for a quick end of the festivities.

“Yeah, but make sure you don’t accidentally kidnap anyone.” He giggles in delight over his own remark.

It’s supposed to be a joke, but neither Keith nor Shiro laugh.

*

The planet has three minor suns that are all setting an hour later – it’s evening in Earth standards.

“We prepared a place to sleep for both of you,” one of the servants tells them. “Two rooms,” he adds.

They get an invisible stamp on their hand, which they have to hold in front of the door – and that’s it. Shiro’s room is next to Keith’s, they both try out to see if it works first.

“Good night?” Shiro stands awkwardly outside the room and waves at Keith, takes two steps into his room.

Shiro doesn’t mind, but—

“What?”

“I don’t trust them – so I’m sleeping in your room tonight,” he repeats.

Shiro doesn’t mind, really – wouldn’t have been the first time for them to share a bed but… it has been a while.

“Make yourself at home,” he still tells him confidently, gets his uniform jacket off and heads to another room that is labeled as Earthling’s bathroom – the written English looks like someone drew it instead of actually writing it.

The bathroom doesn’t really look like the bathrooms Shiro knows. It takes a while for Shiro to understand how to use anything in it but he manages to get clean. The shower is missing but there’s a big yellow button that says ‘cleaning particles’. He feels brave as he pushes the button with only a second of hesitating and feels refreshed a few seconds afterwards. He moves back into the main room, where Keith has already changed into sweatpants and a black t-shirt.

Shiro is not prepared for the casual look being _that_ good. He stumbles back in and throws a few things around by accident.

“Uhm, bathroom’s free,” he tells Keith and puts the decoration and stuff that he scattered everywhere back to their rightful place.

“Just a heads up, don’t push the button quorkeling. Leaves a weird feeling.”

Keith laughs at him – it looks daring. “I’m kind of intrigued to try.”

“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Shiro smiles back, breathlessly.

He pulls his own sweatpants and a fresh white undershirt from his bag. After he changes, he sits on the wobbly round bed (easier said than done) and pushes the soft violet material (an…unusual blanket) first back and then over him. It takes ten minutes for him to fall asleep, and he only notices faintly that Keith joins the bed later.

Keith shuffles closer during the night. Shiro can’t say he wasn’t used to that before. Keith used to roll and turn like the wheel of a racing car, and it’s adorable to see him toss and turn, as long he doesn’t wake up.

If that was all, Shiro could gladly sleep until noon. But waking up with his arm draped over him and a hand at his lower stomach is _new_.

“Keith,” he says quietly in the early morning hours, hoping he will realize the position that they are in and slowly retreat the hand he put near his crotch.

He doesn’t. Keith starts stroking over his stomach instead.

It’s only a few gentle brushes, but it’s already too much. Shiro takes his hand and puts it back to Keith who turns to him. He opens his eyes and stares at Shiro in shock. Shiro briefly thinks that his movements were automatic gestures, learned by muscle memory. Of course, not planned.

“Sorry,” Keith says, eyes wide open, waiting for Shiro’s reaction.

Shiro wants to do a lot of things but presses all his indecent thoughts away.

“It’s okay”, he says instead, and rolls out of bed.

“Let’s get ready soon – we want to use this day to do some practical research,” he reminds Keith and heads to the bathroom.

Luckily, the Kro’weksuliders don’t put mirrors there – he’s not ready to see the red flooded face he’s making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it begins


	3. Don't look ahead, there's stormy weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exploring a new planet, weird incidents and wandering in the forest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao this chapter is so fucking long, but I wanted to get this part online before S8 drops.  
> Edit: So S8....let's not talk about that. The idea I had for this fic was from before. I'll never believe Shiro will not love Keith in every reality.  
> Edit2: I realized I accidently posted a part of the fanfic that doesn't belong at the end of the chapter, so I edited it out.

Chapter III - Don't Look Ahead, There's Stormy Weather

* * *

* * *

Their plan is to stay, gather information and contact a few planets nearby as long as they are staying on Kro’weksulid. It’s a lot of work that’s coming, but the first day is reserved for simply heading outside and using their time to go explore on their own. Both Shiro and Keith are equipped with digital note pads that can record films and take pictures, too, some local snacks to eat for the day and two bottles of water. All of it is secured in Shiro’s backpack which has enough space for all of it.

It’s early in the morning and Keith’s hair is a mess, strands spiking into every direction. The tired eyes and accompanying big bags right below make it impossible to miss that he hasn’t slept well. Shiro smiles shyly at him, reaches for one of the more noticeable strands of hair and puts it back into place. Keith’s mouth turns downwards.

“We’re not meeting anyone officially today.” It sounds defensive; groggy. “My hair should be fine.”

“You’re right,” he says after a moment, looking down at Keith’s adorable face, then shrugs it off, stretches his arms and gets his backpack. “Let’s go explore then.”

They take the public transport system to get out of the city into remoter parts outside the city walls. It’s a long capsule without seats – one could only sit on the ground, so Keith and Shiro stand. The travel takes a while, which means they have time to scan over the landscape.

“If I didn’t know better, I would assume we are going for a hike in, I don’t know, Canada,” Shiro says, eyes on the woods and nature all around them. “If it’s anything like that, it might be pretty damn good,” Keith grins, looking less tired than at the start of the day.

It takes half an hour and they get to the last station, where no one else (or at least no one they can see) but them get off.

“Kosmo,” Keith calls when he barely walked two steps and his space wolf appears out of thin air right beside him. Shiro looks at the wolf in surprise. He didn’t know yet that Keith could simply call him, and he would appear in under a second. Shiro wonders how far it will reach, if the wolf is able to travel throughout several miles when Keith calls to him, or if he’s isn’t straying too far from Keith in the first place.

There’s another thing on his mind, too.

“So, you accepted the name?” he asks Keith with a smug grin. His eyes follow him as he leans down to pet his wolf and hug him.

“When I want to call him, yeah. It’s the only thing he listens to.” Keith’s reply comes with a faint hint of _betrayal_ in his voice. From where he squats on the ground, Keith picks up a crooked branch and gets up again. He throws it. As expected, Kosmo doesn’t move and just looks back at Keith.

“Maybe I have to simply …accept it as his new name,” Keith mutters to himself.

Shiro keeps smiling, grabs his backpack and shoulders it again – or tries to – Keith wordlessly takes it from him to carry it himself. Shiro doesn’t complain.

*

The first steps are tentative, and they wander around with seemingly no goal. It feels harmonious, it’s quiet; it’s the first break, _real_ break they have since the end of the war. With only the two of them (plus Kosmo) they can go lazily about exploring this world; leisurely breathe in the unknown’s planet’s atmosphere.

Normally the people of this planet won’t go into the woods, but there is a small trail where they walk, and it’s constructed, not trampled. There’s a higher oxygen density in the air in the woods, so the Kro’weksuliders seldomly took trips into the nature. It will be an unpleasant experience for the people born on this planet, but it’s fine (if not even beneficial) for humans from Earth.

Kosmo suddenly dashes forward, straight into the woods. When he comes back his legs are full of mud and his snout is covered in snot and leaves.

“No, really? Kosmo, I’m not washing you today _again,_ ” Keith complains, while the wolf is watching him curiously.

Keith sighs. They both know that Keith loves him and can’t be firm with his threats, so the wolf dashes away again, probably happily plunging himself into the next dirty creek.

“He loves the woods,” Keith says. “I regret that I didn’t go with him when I was back on Earth.”

Shiro glances towards him as they are walking, then trips over his own feet. He catches himself quickly and Keith held onto him too concentrating more on walking again.

“He should be able to go by himself, shouldn’t he.” Shiro asks.

“Yeah,” Keith laughs. “But he likes to go with me.”

Keith feels so responsible for his wolf, even though he’s a self-reliant creature. Keith doesn’t need to feed him with treats and dog food, but he does, because he simply loves him.

They pass by a small waterfall at the upper end of a brook, Keith ducks down to look at the water; colored like the ocean’s pearls, shimmering and reflecting light a thousand times against the tree trunks around them. It’s so quiet in the woods; Shiro only hears his steady heartbeat. The beating increases when he zones in on it, but he assumes it’s because he’s concentrating on it in the first place. His eyes glance at Keith who carefully sinks his hand into the icy water. Something in his heart stirs at the sight of him.

_Not good._

Keith gets up again, so they can continue walking. They arrive the highest point within the forest. The wind blows violently around their bodies as they are standing there, above a valley. One strong breeze blows them almost down. “Ah, it’s here, right?”

“Careful,” Shiro says and takes Keith by the hand – together they take a few steps backwards.

“We got to go down there, but not that way,” he jokes and lets go of his hand quickly again – marching down the steep trail first.

They soon arrive the valley – it’s a wide green forest clearing, encircled by countless trees similar to pine trees. They have another shade of green – it’s the only thing making it obvious that they aren’t in Canada, and much lesser still on Earth.

“It’s amazing how similar it looks to Earth. We are somewhere in the universe and there’s something that looks just like home,” Shiro says.

“Me, too,” Keith says and laughs which makes Shiro’s heart beat even faster, “I’m from somewhere in the universe but I look just like you.”

Shiro muffles his laugh. “That’s what comes to your mind, huh,” he asks and smiles at the open water, the surface glittering. He observes every sparkle and every reflection, feeling at peace.

Keith hums, and leans in on him. His head rests on Shiro’s shoulder – it’s an intimate gesture, something that feels odd because it’s new, but he accepts it and hopes Keith won’t notice how it heart simply cannot stop its rapid beating.

“Thanks,” Keith says quietly. _Thanks for this._

*

They stand like this for a long time, no one able to break the position and go on. They keep watching the wide lake in front of them. When the wind brushes over the water, he brings some leaves, lets them float over the water and sinks them into reflecting light.

Keith clear’s his throat.

“Let’s go?” he asks and Shiro nods, Keith’s head still on his shoulder. He turns his head to look down and knows it’s a mistake – Keith’s face looks so soft, so at peace with everything. There’s no way he can ignore what’s written on that face.

“Yeah,” Shiro says softly and places a stern look on the water’s surface again.

*

They are taking pictures, taking probes from the water and the ground – take pictures of everything, including a selfie of themselves.

“As a memory,” Keith says and adds, “we never had free time like this when there was war.”

They settle down on a small field of flowers after they spot a few animals there, to also take pictures of them. They take pictures of those that are already there and wait an hour more for three rarer species they still want to see. One shows up, the other two don’t. It isn’t a big loss. Not when the flowers bloom and the other animals hop around them, not when Keith picks on the green grass and looks at a purplish flower in awe. It’s not a loss when Shiro can watch him unguarded, during all of that.

Later Kosmo joins them again, moving beside the two of them. He’s warming both Shiro and Keith with his own bodily warmth.

They spent more than a few hours out in the wild, recharging their energy and therefore need to run back to the last capsule that brings them back to the city. The last few hundred meters, Kosmo teleports them and they get into the body of the capsule right before the door closes.

The minute they set their feet into it and the capsule starts moving, they are holding their stomachs and cackling loudly.

“Imagine spending the night in the forests!” Keith’s voice is high pitched and breathless, he has one hand on his thigh, and holds onto a handle to keep himself steady while laughing.

“We would have to MacGyver our way through it,” Shiro agrees and is laughing too, and wonders when it was the last time that he laughed that hard.

Keith’s ruffled hair falls into his face, hides the tears that form at the corners of his eyes. He looks beautiful – flushed and energized – Shiro seeks words to describe him in his mind, and comes up empty; until he realizes that what he’s searching for is something to describe that Keith’s looking alive – Keith’s so alive, more alive than Shiro ever had felt in the last months.

Right after the thought consumes him, he’s hit with a wave of sadness, _unexplainable_ sadness, that washes over him and numbs all feelings.

Of course, Keith catches up on it.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, straightens and puts a hand on Shiro’s shoulder.

“Ah, nothing,” Shiro replies, “’m just tired.”

The rest of the drive they both spend lost in their own thoughts, but it’s a comfortable silence. Throughout the other stops, they only notice when the Kro’weksuliders enter at noticing some small brown clouds appear around them – a sign that someone’s feeling surprised, as they’ve learned by now. Probably at the sight of two humans, one half Galra, one with an Altean arm, two foreigners on this planet, sitting in a capsule, their usual means of transport.

When they arrive safely, Keith goes decidedly to his own room and doesn’t spend the night at Shiro’s again.

Shiro goes to bed immediately, knows that he has to get up in the morning, but he’s wondering if Keith went to his own room because of what happened in the morning, or simply because he decided that the people on this planet are trustworthy enough.

Shiro lies down on the bed and closes his eyes in hope that slumber hits him fast – but he lies there awake, unable to fall asleep until the morning hours.

Keith wakes him the next morning, knocking at his door with his flat hand. From the sound of his voice, he has been standing there for a while already.

“Shiro? Shiro, is everything alright?” His voice sounds panicked. Shiro’s slowly raises his head to look at the door. He remembers that he locked his door yesterday evening and gets up.

“Everything alright.” He groans and gets up, walks to the door, opens it quickly.

“Come in,” he tells Keith wearily.

Keith looks at him, gaze still worried, then eyes moving downwards to Shiro’s exposed chest. His eyes met his quickly again.

“Come in,” Shiro tells him again and steps out the door and drags himself towards the bathroom.

“We’ve got a meeting today, then the report about the human they abducted – are you okay?” Keith follows him to the bathroom.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Shiro says tight lipped and takes his toiletry bag out, searches for his razor and additionally takes a green container out. He clumsily opens the container with one hand and starts to apply shaving gel. There’s a slight fear of cutting himself when Keith keeps watching him like that.

“I’m fine,” he says, and when he applies the shaving gel, he misses his face first. “On second thought, maybe take notes for me, if I fall asleep during the report.”

*

During the meeting, Shiro tries his best to stay awake – they don’t have coffee on Kro’weksulid, and maybe it’s better like that anyways. Coffee never helped his nerves.

They negotiate what they can and cannot do during their stay on the planet, discuss if they want to teach about each other’s planets’ history or technology, talk about what can or cannot be recorded – Shiro feels like it takes hours even though he normally enjoys the work, enjoys those meetings, enjoys negotiating and trying to find the best deal for both.

He’s still awake enough to get through the report and doesn’t care what he misses – although his tone was jokingly when he suggested it. Keith takes notes and it’s sweet of him, but in the same thought Shiro wonders if it has any value if Keith keeps getting distracted by him, looks at him in worry every few minutes.

Shiro takes the rest of the day off – he tells Keith that he will try and catch up the sleep he missed that night.

The reminder in form of a yellow sticky note on his desk that he scribbled last night makes him sigh. Another therapy appointment he has to take today. Practically Shiro knows it’s good and important for him, too. It doesn’t change the creeping feeling of being uncomfortable as soon as he as to talk about anything remotely deeper than what he had for lunch yesterday.

He knows he has to do it, that it only helps him, and that his employer, the Garrison, has all reason to give him this kind of mental support.

Still.

Shiro feels like he can’t bring himself to want it today.

He gets into bed, then still calls his therapist, because he’s a responsible guy. Afterwards he falls asleep.

Keith convinces him to get dinner with him. They eat at a small restaurant in a calmer part of the city which is within walking distance. Kosmo accompanies them again this time and Shiro reaches under the table to secretly feed him dog treats. The wolf is finally warming up to him again, even though slowly.

“How was it?” Keith asks out of the blue. Shiro needs a moment to understand what he’s talking about.

“Ah”, he remembers, “therapy?”

Keith nods.

“It was alright. Everything’s easier when you have enough sleep.”

He doesn’t know if Keith wants more information. For now, he seems content with the answer – but Shiro also knows that Keith never pushes him, never wants him to say more than he wants to. As they eat in silence, Shiro thinks about the therapy session today, thinks about how he tends to close up, to not talk to others. It wasn’t always like that, but with a terminal disease at a young age, sometimes it felt easier to keep all to himself than make others worry. So, he doesn’t tell, so he closes up. A habit that made him a loner and drove Adam away from him.

Keith on the other hand never left his side and stays patient with him – Shiro sometimes doesn’t understand why. Keith might be that way with him now, but it doesn’t mean he will always be. Maybe it’s a reason why they so quickly lost contact after the war. Maybe he should try talking to Keith more openly, try to include him more in his trail of thought. If anyone can bear it, if anyone deserves it, it’s Keith.

Shiro wants to include him, wants to share more. It should be easier now.

“She said I should try to challenge myself with something that won’t end in a possible death.”

It’s a rocky start, but he tries.

Keith looks up from the plate in front of him, eyes on Shiro. He slowly nods after giving it a minute of thought.

“Maybe you should,” he grins. Shiro’s tense face breaks into a smile. “I suggest cooking?”

“Something that won’t end in death, Shiro,” Keith teases. Shiro notices in horror that Keith’s tone spikes something in him that he doesn’t dare to interpret.

“Y-yeah,” he replies and looks down on his plate, takes a bite from something that simply looks like spaghetti but is firmer in texture.

“I’m just kidding. It’s a great idea,” Keith says more seriously right after and adds: “If you succeeded, teach me, too.”

“You can’t cook?” Shiro sounds more surprised than he planned.

“It’s okay – like I can do simple stuff, but it usually doesn’t taste that good.”

Silence again, a thoughtful, wondering one. Kosmo nuzzles his head against Shiro’s Altean prothesis.

“There are really some topics we’ve never talked about,” Keith states and looks at Shiro. He’s not smiling – gaze thoughtful. It drops again, down to his plate of food.

“We could change that,” he offers lightly.

Keith looks up again, smiling warily.

“I’d like that.”

Shiro takes a breath. “Me too. I’d like to get to know you better again, Keith.” He wonders where his bravery is coming from.

Keith’s gaze drops down, back on his plate and Shiro wonders if Keith’s emotions show up on his face, because he’d like to see them, understanding him – but at least he can hear Keith’s smile in his next words.

“You will, Shiro.”

The next three weeks are more than busy – only in meetings or at the rare occasions on which they are alone and go explore they have time to see each other. When they are out on the planet, look around and explore, they have time to breath in between taking pictures, writing descriptions and constructing maps.

The second week is filled with meetings and dinners with guests that came for a visit – they meet Kro’weksulid’s neighbors, socialize, chat, and so on.

The third week they prepare classes to teach about Earth, teach the information the Kro’weksuliders are interested in. In the morning they each go to teach their first class – Keith’s face is green, and he fumbles with his hands all the time during breakfast. Shiro already had been a TA back at the Garrison and is much calmer. It all goes well, in the end; Still Keith is glad to know that there are only two more classes left until they leave.

In turn, they also join university classes and take notes too, to learn more about the planet.

On their last day, they travel back to the spot in the woods which they visited first. This time, they are not documenting anything, just walking the same distance, looking at the same scenery again. It’s colder than the first time – but it’s just as peaceful and beautiful as they remembered.

“We just went and really did that,” Keith says and turns to Shiro. “We’re exploring, Shiro. We’re seeing new worlds. We’re documenting it for Earth. It’s peaceful.”

Shiro feels the same. He can’t believe that they are here, together. If someone told five years earlier that he will break-up with his current relationship, be in space, fight an intergalactically war, dies but survives, and stands on a foreign planet here, with Keith, he probably would have believed them because who could really think of something like that, but he would be really surprised.

“I can’t thank you enough, Keith,” Shiro says. He feels them growing closer with this, which makes him realize that they have been distant in the time before.

“You’re welcome,” Keith grins cheekily and stretches both arms out, first facing the trees with his fingers, then widing his arms to the lake to feel the gentle breeze; then he faces Shiro. “Come here,” he grins and wild and elemental and Shiro can’t resist that offer. He closes his arms around the Red Paladins waist, pulls him closer. They hug it all out – the last three weeks efforts and hardships (although there weren’t many). It feels intimate, alone like this in the woods – when usually they were surrounded by their friends before. Shiro feels his heart thundering again, and there’s no way he can ignore it now, now way to deny it’s change.

He lets the hug happen, pats Keith on the back and then, pulls back.

“Let’s go back soon”, he says, and without looking at him.

The first few days back on their own ship, Shiro makes himself rare.

He calls Hunk and asks him about cooking – uses the small kitchen they have on the ship and is glad that there is a fire detector that can prevent a mild catastrophe. He didn’t set the kitchen on fire, but it was a close call.

He struggles through therapy sessions and shuts himself off from his therapist, too. She knows, probably, but lets him be, helps him wherever she can, asks about the cooking.

Cooking makes him especially frustrated – Shiro is used to hard work and succeeding, but no matter how hard he concentrates, how much he learns, his cooking has the taste of burned wood and salt.

He shuts off to Keith too, although a week before, they’d progressed. He knows Keith knows what’s happening, and he hates it. Keith still looks after him when he’s trying to cook and leaves him alone when he’s sure there won’t be another fire.

One week later, they are sitting in the cockpit and have to navigate through a violent asteroid storm. They only need to concentrate from time to time when it gets harder to navigate through it, but they still can talk.

Shiro is quiet. He burnt some Kro’weksulid eggs at noon, so his mood has been down for a while.

It’s Keith who starts talking to fill the silence first.

“I was with the Blades,” Keith says and stretches. Another asteroid flies by, and he ditches it. Shiro has been looking at him and didn’t notice it.

“You know, when I left the Garrison a few months ago.”

“So, they are still operating?” Shiro asks tentatively.

They haven’t been really talking about what Keith did in detail. Keith knows what Shiro did – working and living. Day after day.

“Kind of - the work has changed a lot since I first joined. To survive we had to recruit. The existence of the Blades hasn’t been a secret to anyone anymore for a while now, so we opened the whole thing to outsiders, non-Galras. It went against everything Kolivan ever wanted.”

“I can imagine that,” Shiro says and pushes a few buttons on the control panel. The asteroids become fewer and fewer the further they fly.

“You honestly can’t,” Keith laughs. It’s not bitter.

It feels like this right now is the longest conversation that they had in a week. Shiro wants it to continue – even… when his heart rate speeds up again. Even when there are some things he can’t contain anymore.

They fly in silence for a while, passing asteroid after asteroid, eyes fixed on the screen, the darkness and the moving objects.

“And then?” Shiro asks into the silence. Keith stands up and gets a tube of water for them both, returns to his seat and flops into it immediately.

“And then,” he hands Shiro the water, “we gathered many Galra. Some needed help, some… after the empire had finally fallen, we found people who were directly responsible for major crimes - there were hearings. We had to bring them to the current interstellar tribunal.” Keith puts the straw through the water tube and brings it to his mouth. “It’s been a lot.”

“Sounds like it.” There’s not a lot Shiro can say. Finding war criminals and prosecuting them didn’t sound like fun.

“But,” Keith slurps a sip of water, “there were good things, too. We found many Galra who never liked the Empire in the first place. Some of them had to operate under it for survival, but it’s hard to separate who volunteered to do bad things and who didn’t.”

Shiro nods along, waits for Keith to continue.

“There aren’t really many Galra,” he says, “Which makes sense. It’s always have been sentries that worked for Zarkon.”

“Alteans for Hagar.”

“Yeah. Now, we brought some people together who can now live in peace. That was something great.”

“It sounds like it.”

“After a while there was nothing I could do. The base isn’t too far from Earth and sometimes I went back and forth. But it became pretty clear that my work isn’t needed after a while, so I returned.”

Shiro has to process that, first. Keith went back rather quickly. He never sent a message.

“What’s Axca doing?” Shiro asks, quick to change the topic. Not only for the sake of keeping the conversation going but also because he cares.

“She’s fine, she usually stays with my mother, especially since I went back to earth.”

Shiro doesn’t look at him. It sounds like a lot of work, gathering Galra and finding war criminals. And yet he went back.

“To the shack,” he asks cautiously.

“Yeah.”

His voice is soft – Shiro dares to look next to him for a split second. Keith smiles at him and he feels it soothe his soul. He missed this. He missed them.

He’s glad he got back what felt like it was lost.

Talking with Keith always had felt liberating and it still did. There are some things Keith tells him that make him realize that he has missed a lot from Keith’s life in a short time - and he regrets that he hasn’t been there with him.

Keith tells him that there had been a time when he hadn’t noticed that he had run out of money and had to start day jobs - when even Krolia came to find him and bring food. He worked at the villages that spread around in the desert - war had put strains to Earth. The rebuilding after to repair what was broken never made it the same again. Gone were diners, supermarkets, DIY stores. And what came was something entirely different, open stalls and aliens that sold foreign things. It wasn’t the same, it was different, incomparable to before. But that didn’t mean it was bad. Opening Earth as a haven for people from around the universe attracted people that were victims of 10.000 years of occupation too. They didn’t have a place to call home anymore; many of them settled - different from Earth’s population who would budge under the steaming hot temperatures – in the desert. Sometimes they were joined in peaceful co-existent living by outer space’s people that once came to help rebuild and then stayed on earth.

In the middle of them, Keith had worked and helped where he could, he tells it all Shiro, who seldomly set a foot outside the range of the Garrison. Keith had seen so much, when he himself had seen so little in all those months.

“Amazing,” he simply says. He looks at Keith and Keith smiles back. It shouldn’t be, but it feels intimate. Shiro turns his head to look at the monitor again. Shiro is happy that many people could find a safe place on Earth and devastated that he knows nothing about it.

“I feel like I’ve lost the time that I spent at the Garrison, training cadets and overlooking paperwork,” he quietly confesses.

The silence stretches again, covers the room. But Keith won’t let it become uncomfortable.

“What’s done is done,” he offers and looks up at the screen.

For now, there’s nothing (or probably everything) happening out there, but in their spaceship it’s just them – not the whole wide universe. They are sitting, waiting for anything that comes. Keith shared a part of himself, shared what he did in the meantime when he and Shiro hadn’t seen each other. Shiro can’t put in words how proud he is that Keith got around, and since long ago learned how to handle himself at his worst. Shiro has bailed him out of juvenile detention center before, but he still thinks that he hasn’t seen Keith yet at his worst before. And maybe it will never come – maybe it’s just how Keith is, gentle, emotional, raw, but good. And even though he went away, Keith came back to check on him. He’s there for him, he’s as steady constant in his life. He won’t go – even if whatever he does changes him, improves him, makes him grow, he won’t leave Shiro, who falls back and got worse again.

The thought relaxes him, and he finally can feel light again.

Shiro hums in agreement, changes the ship to autopilot and turns with his seat towards Keith. “So, asteroid storm’s gone and there are still 20 Vargas until we reach our next stop. Anything you wanna do?”

“Road games,” Keith answers and grins at Shiro’s not so subtle groan.

“What? Thought you liked silly games”, Keith says, pretending to be on defense when he really isn’t. Shiro cracks a smile and shrugs.

Keith crosses his arms beneath his head and leans bag - puts a foot on the top of small cupboard. Shiro doesn’t mind - he also leans back, crossing one leg over the other.

“How about truth or dare,” Shiro suggests after he thinks long and hard about it. There aren’t many road games he knows, but he knows this dumb game from when he was a teenager. He’s grinning like a mischievous four-year-old. Keith grins too.

“How endearing. Sounds like a game that’s already a few decades old. Also for kids,” Keith teases him.

“I know, but come on - I, I mean we could just like, get to know each other better.”

Shiro thinks it’s a good idea, trying to get to know each other more. He wants to after all the time he missed.

He wants to restore their friendship; and when he thinks about it, they hadn’t had time like this since in forever. After he was gone, it wasn’t Shiro but the clone who was living among the Paladins and Keith. Shiro’s now yearning to be closer than his clone, but also hesitated to be.

Keith laughs, but does not look at him. “Alright, truth or dare, Shiro?” His voice is so playful and light, that Shiro’s heart skips a beat.

“Truth,” he says, because he’s a coward.

Keith doesn’t need much time to think of a question.

“Me and bowl of Macaroni and Cheese fall down a building. Which one do you catch?”

Shiro doesn’t hesitate a second. “I’d save you, of course.” He turns his head to Keith, and fears he’s looking like he’s getting tunnel vision. Keith just laughs louder -” You don’t have to take the question that serious, Shiro.”

*

The game goes on and on, and they only throw in a ‘dare’ occasionally, just to change things up and so they won’t feel bad that the ‘game’ just merged into a rotational free pass on asking questions. The questions were hardly breaching the surface, but it’s fine, it keeps it light, but informative. Keith’s last question was how often Shiro shaved and if he actually could grow a beard (the small one the clone had didn’t count). Keith breaches the comfort zone a tiny bit, telling Shiro about his clone afterwards, asking about their shared memories. Shiro’s memories are sometimes blurry and sometimes not – he knows the clone and Keith hadn’t spent much time together, but he knows their relationship was different. He wants to know from Keith, too, if he felt that there was a difference or if to him, or to him, they both are the same. He wants to keep it light, too, because who asks about something like that that easy?

“My turn,” he says. Keith grins at him.

“Truth.”

“Coward,” Shiro teases, and Keith protests.

It’s supposed to be a dumb game, just to get to know each other, but Shiro ruins it faster than a lightning bolt.

“Who did you like more, me or my evil clone?”

He regrets it as soon as he asked it – Keith looks taken aback, as if he slapped him right across his face. Even the light tone in Shiro’s voice can’t stop that from spiraling downwards.

“Shiro,” he only says after a while and doesn’t answer the question. Then, with a sigh: “He was you, but a different kind. I liked you both – but it’s you who I made the most important memories with.”

Shiro swallows. He wanted to know for so long.

“Okay,” he just says.

“Can you feel him? Is he there?” Keith asks.

“No. It’s just me in here,” he answers and laughs. “But when I see his memories, I only see him, not me, and I see that we’re not the same.”

“What do you feel when you, you know…see his memories?”

Shiro swallows again.

“I see that he can handle his emotions better than I do. That he’s open. That he knows himself better than I do. He knows…” Shiro trails off.

_He knew that he loved you._

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Keith offers, because Shiro just stopped talking altogether.

“No, it’s not…just, sometimes I’m jealous of him.” He laughs, but it sounds heavy and forced. “Obviously not of the part where he…”

 _Tried to kill you_.

“Went crazy, but maybe…”

_Where you told him, you love him –_

“Let’s change topics.” He concludes.

He knows almost everything what happened between Keith and Kuron – although some small memories were lost. He knows, there wasn’t anything between them, but he understands how raw and honest Kuron’s feelings for Keith were, and he thinks Keith’s feelings were similar, although maybe not the same.

He sometimes fears that with him coming back and replacing his clone, Keith got back the same closed off Shiro as before who was never as open and vulnerable as his copy.

Sometimes Shiro is afraid that he lost Keith before and after the war when he entered the clone’s body; simply through being alive and himself again.

“Let’s change topics,” Keith agrees and ends Shiro’s trail of thought. “You think of something again.”

Shiro’s glad that he mustn’t think about Kuron anymore and instead about a new question to throw Keith’s way.

“What don’t you like about space traveling?” Shiro asks after a short pause.

It’s something easy and light. Shiro asks because back then, Lance complained about everything and nothing when they were on the (space) road, Hunk always told him how he missed Earth food (even though he polished his cooking skills with foreign ingredients within only a few months), Pidge was more than happy to be in space with more tech and less people, but once in a while she’d also tell how she missed her family and her dog. Coran and Allura were used to space travel, but still missed Altea. It was an occurring topic for them.

Keith never really complained; maybe it’s fitting for someone who was born from the stars.

The Red Paladin doesn’t reply in the first few moments. He’s thinking about it, staring outside at the blinking lights surrounded by darkness. Maybe he’s thinking about Krolia and how space travel doesn’t allow him to see her often.

“I think it’s blue balls,” he laughs and Shiro splutters.

He can’t control his reaction, and he doesn’t know what sound he makes or what kind of face, but he assumes it’s a rather telling one.

Shiro laughs with him though – it’s a joke! - he just hadn’t expected the answer to be so honest.

That’s new, them talking about that, just two dudes sitting around and chatting about being horny in space, yeah, why not? He should know better than to not expect it to backfire, opening that kind of conversation. Keith doesn’t look the least embarrassed, different than Shiro who’s cheeks reddened.

“Honestly, it was worse as a teenager,” Keith explain and pushes Shiro’s doom. “There was no particular reason why… I mean, what I want to say, it’s okay now, back then too, we were in constant battle, so of course there wasn’t much time for that kind of stuff…” He trails off.

Maybe it’s just his imagination, but Keith is suddenly getting shyer with every word. The air is dense. In his idiotic little mind, Shiro thinks that he doesn’t want sex to be a topic that they can’t talk about. He wants to do everything for the sake of fixing whatever pulled them apart, so he just stutters out whatever crosses his mind, too: “Yeah, the pressure back then took any interest in sex for me, too.”

The last time he had sex was with Adam, who was dead now. It’s not pleasant to think about it, honestly, because back before the Kerberos mission, before they had their inevitable break-up, their relationship wasn’t like it was in the beginning and sex was a way to connect easily without thinking too much about their small fights. The thought that it’s not nice thinking badly about sex with Adam, because he’s dead, briefly crosses his mind but gets overshadowed by another thought: That getting involved with another person after him meant to share something intimate again, and Shiro hasn’t been ready to do that.

From the corner of his eye, Keith is watching him - he just noticed but doesn’t react. Instead, he searches for a smooth change of topic, but can’t find any.

“Right,” Keith says after a pause that’s way too long and heavy and adds. “I mean it’s not like there’s a chance anyone could get laid if they’re caged on a ship with the same six crew members all the time with little contact to other people either.”

It feels like he missed five steps in their conversation, but yeah, sure, Keith’s right, he thinks. Back on the Castle of Lions that would have been awkward, Shiro thinks. Still, he doesn’t really get what Keith is implying, that’s why he tries to make a joke that blows right off into his face.

“No one to choose from this ship either,” he laughs. “With only two people, there’s only me here.”

He completely misses the moment Keith’s head looks like it’s on fire. He’s determinedly looking at the controls in front of him when Shiro turns his head and looks and wonders if Keith took his words serious and actually considered it or—

 _It’s just a joke,_ Shiro thinks but doesn’t say. And then: _Why did he say that?_

“Y-yeah,” Keith breathes and looks at his hands, “I guess it’s only you”

They share an awkward chuckle. It doesn’t release the tension at all.

“I can’t believe that’s the conversation we’re having,” Shiro confesses. It’s different from before. Awkward. Closer, maybe.

“Me neither,” Keith agrees and laughs again. §Changed a lot from ‘ _What hoverbike are you riding?_ ’”

Suddenly Shiro gets hit with a painful awareness of the ship’s laughable size – and of how you can’t escape when you want to escape the only person that’s on there. He doesn’t dare to move or say anything, and the air around them feels like it stands still. Time stands still but the universe around them keeps moving.

And then, he sees from the corner of his eye that Keith stands up from his seat – head still red and eyes wild. He takes two steps so he’s in front of Shiro, staring him down. His gaze looks riled up and undecisive.

Keith puts his hands left and right from Shiro’s head, but he’s not able to look him in the eyes as he comes closer. A strangled “Shiro” barely escapes his lips as he closes in and kisses him. Shiro doesn’t close his eyes and doesn’t react, only feels the lips on his, and wonders why he never realized.

His heart is thundering in his chest.

 _Is this a confession_ , he thinks and realizes it’s not.

Keith moves with motive, puts his legs right and left next to Shiro’s thighs, and moves in to kiss him again. Shiro’s brain is on hold - he can’t process a single thought and doesn’t realize that the clones – his body - is already moving. His hands roam over Keith’s back to feel the muscular and lean build of his body. That’s how he feels like, Shiro thinks in amazement, then realizes that he must have wondered about the muscles on Keith’s body before. He wonders now what the rest of his body must feel like. He’s ashamed for wanting to know.

He’s your friend, Shiro thinks desperately, and knows that he’s lying to himself.

He kisses him now, too, just in time for Keith to not pull back. He presses against the back of Keith’s head. It’s too uncoordinated first, and it’s mostly Shiro’s fault, it’s been a while since Adam, since any romantic feelings at all - he doesn’t even remember how to properly kiss somebody, but it’s okay, because Keith is going slower for him, maybe because he notices how Shiro is gasping for air and clicks their teeth by accident. Keith kisses him, and it grows deeper and deeper. He has a hand on Shiro’s stomach, stroking there already. He’s now nipping at his neck, and Shiro has air and time to contemplate what’s the fuck is happening. He opens his mouth to say something, but Keith’s lips wander down his throat and chest and a strained groan escapes him.

There’s no place for any deep thoughts, just for the steadily growing arousal in him. His mind comes as far as ‘ _this wasn’t planned’_ , but then stops altogether. He can’t stop himself from reacting, because, he realizes in shock, that he wants _this_ , maybe wanted this for a long time already – his body moves on his own accord, when his mind hangs back and only slowly catches up.

But it’s him, who stands up first after making out on the uncomfortable seat there, who looks at Keith while he in turn, can’t look at him, who guides him back to his own room with only takes a few steps. It’s him, pushing Keith down on the bed and following him – but that’s as far as it goes, because Keith gains the upper hand and, in turn, pushes Shiro down into his sheets.

Words are unnecessary, when almost everything’s been told before – Shiro looks out for looks of regret or unpleasant feelings in Keith’s face and body language, but he’s met with none. Keith observes his face, before he moves to pull Shiro’s pants down and throw them to the side, shuffling up to meet his mouth again. Shiro holds him tight, feeling every curve of his body and kissing all he can reach.

 _He’s hot, so hot_ , his mind chants and wonders how he could ignore it for the last six months, how could he not see or…

Shiro makes no move to undress Keith, so the black-haired man shuffles back and takes it into his own hands. For a second, they look at each other naked – Keith’s pupils are dilated, Shiro’s cheeks are red. It really has been a while.

Keith is lurching at him again, pressing to him, now naked. Shiro groans, feeling the friction of Keith’s dick against his. He rolls his hips up and draws a groan from Keith – _Keith_ , his Keith. They are rubbing against each other, kissing, increasing friction. Keith’s grip on his bicep is intense, but it doesn’t hurt, not a lot at least, and being held down like that kicks something in Shiro’s brain lose. If he lets it continue, he will come for sure.

But he wants to draw it out, to slow down, to finally show him how he feels, now that he realized, too – talk to him – kiss him. And he realizes, that’s not what Keith has in mind. He’s quick and unattached. Shiro pushes him off, rolls him to the side and gets settled behind him, getting comfortable, slowing down again – Keith gasps in surprise and moans at the feel of Shiro’s cock nudging against his back. He’s reaching back, trying to get a hold on Shiro, squeezes and touches everywhere, unsure where he should let his hand linger.

Shiro’s laying behind him, slowing him down again. He takes his hands into his, then he presses kisses against his throat. The floating arm has access enough – he’s touching Keith’s cock and stroking him leisurely. Keith makes all kinds of noises – it makes him so hot and so hard.

“Keith,” he whispers into his neck.

Shiro hadn’t had sex in a while, so he barely remembers what how he’s supposed to move, but he thinks that this must be fine. Keith is groaning, turning his head to give him messy kisses. Shiro is turned on beyond words, but he’s composed enough to not speed things up, to give Keith everything he deserves.

He seemed to be doing fine because Keith’s hand curls affectionately into his. Keith relaxes into Shiro’s touch, breathing softly, groaning and gasping. He’s slowing down, until he’s not –he grinds his ass back against Shiro’s body, pushing against his crotch. Shiro’s hard-on is nudging against Keith’s back – Keith lets go of Shiro’s hand to reach behind him and take his cock in his hand. Shiro groans - the position is awkward, but he lets himself be caressed.

The pressure on his cock lifts and Keith’s hand is moving over and touching other parts, his legs and waist only slightly turned back to him. He retreats his hand from between his legs, to put it on his hip and pull Shiro closer.

Shiro loves being touched like that, loves the warmth of Keith’s body against his chest. He’s still feels like he’s in a daze, mesmerized by all the scents, the feeling of skin, everything that hits his senses and his body moves on its own accord, jerking off Keith and nosing at his neck, softly kissing and biting there. He feels the tension in Keith’s body there first, and when he looks down, he knows why.

Keith’s hand roamed from his Shiro’s hip down to his own ass, spreading the butt cheeks first, then hooking his leg under his arm to make room for him. He presses back but doesn’t look back; it’s pretty clear what he wants.

He wants Shiro to fuck him.

Shiro bites his lip at the sight of him, but it doesn’t matter how turned on he is, he slowly comes to his senses.

They don’t have condoms, not even lube.

It would hurt, not to mention be unsafe. Shiro wants nothing more than to give in, but he’s neither dumb, nor reckless. If it wasn’t some kind of mistake until know, that definitely would make it one: He doesn’t know if Keith had any experience with fingering himself (if he had any sexual experiences before, Shiro thought, he might at least had caught wind of it), so being unable to use lube would make it uncomfortable, let alone that Keith doesn’t seem like he wants to go slow.

Going all the way no doesn’t feel right; they didn’t talk about this; he doesn’t know where Keith stands at all. Maybe they shouldn’t have rushed into this, Shiro thinks, but his mind pushes it off too, is filled with how he wants him and how much he likes him. How did he not understand that until now?

He rubs his dick on Keith’s thigh, just a little, and Keith groans, untenses and pushes back, but Shiro only kisses his neck softly, not going any further. “I’m not going to put it in,” he says then, while he caresses him, and Keith freezes in his arms. He can’t see his face, doesn’t know what he thinks, but momentarily stops stroking.

Shiro doesn’t want this to be full of want - he wants it to be tender, too. He wants to show everything he can’t say out loud, yet.

It’s then, that Keith turns around, eyes dark and wanting, but there’s hurt in it, too. Shiro realizes too late, that even stopping now doesn’t prevent them from hurting.

Keith hovers over him, gaze intense, and takes their cocks in his hand. Shiro gasps audibly when he begins to stroke them off together. He can’t stop the pleasure from building. It’s going fast, and he wants this too, his mind is flying out to the stars, leaves his body alone. He wants to be kissed, but Keith doesn’t kiss him, only when he lifts his body and pulls his face down to himself. Keith groans as he fucks his fist over them hard and fast, and Shiro feels his orgasm build up. It’s too fast - he wants this to last and never to end, because otherwise he has to face the consequences of crossing the lines.

Keith’s face is aroused, and Shiro can’t stop looking at him – he stops wondering what he’s thinking about and why he does it – it’s _probably blue balls_ – maybe he’s just in need for a partner to get him off, and Shiro realizes that he’s down to be that for him too; just someone he can jerk off with from time to time.

He tenses up and comes hard with a loud groan, gasps for a while and holds onto Keith who is now only stroking himself over the edge, looking at his chest, not at him.

He falls next to him into the cushions. The room is dead silent, because now the gasps and the groaning and the slick noise of rubbing their dicks ceased to exist, and they are left with themselves. Shiro has no chance to calm down, to think about what to do, when-

Keith sobs.

Shiro freezes and looks next to him. It started with a few tears, but now Keith is full blown crying, hand gripping his own face hard.

His body shudders and he can’t seem to stop. Shiro extends his hand and reaches out to him, takes him into his arm and strokes over his hair. ‘Is everything okay?’ is a dumb question, so he just waits and cradles him in his arms. Keith sobs against his chest and let’s himself be comforted for now.

Shiro doesn’t know what to say - that he’s sorry? That they’ve overstepped a line? That they should have worked on being friends first before they stumbled into this mess?

But he doesn’t have enough time to think about what he can say; Keith pulls from his arms, gets up and reaches for his clothes - he’s as quickly out the door as he’s able to get off from masturbating while sitting on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some smut! Lmao


	4. Lips against the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read this before you read the Chapter!:
> 
> This is a flashback chapter where a past-relationship is introduced. It won't have a massive effect into what's happening in the story, but it's important for the story & how SK deal with stuff. Be reassured that this past-relationship isn't endgame and will only be explored within this chapter.
> 
> Thanks for reading this first! You can skip whatever comes next now, or just read it, too~  
> __________
> 
> Thanks to my love @cocobold (on ao3) and @anombi everywhere else for proofreading it. The comment where you went "Oh maybe describe what kind of food is on his plate" had me laughing tears, even though it was for flow of reading reasons I just imagined you sitting there, reading this fic and thinking "I really want to know what he's eating". Thanks!
> 
> _____  
> Title: Lewis Del Mar - Waves  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGrpK-sQD3E  
> ______  
> Before I forget it, there's a good chance that this won't be done at 5 chapters lol

Chapter IV: Lips against the Sky 

* * *

* * *

“Does the captain know you’re in love with him?”

It’s been a long day - the cafeteria is empty. The other Garrison Pilots from the meeting collectively went out to get food downtown, but Keith stayed.

He looks up into the face of the person that had approached him. It’s been a long week already. And it just got much, much longer.

“I thought we were done with teenage bullying?” he only says and stuffs his mouth with whatever piles in front of him on his plate - he’s not a picky eater and just takes what the Garrison cafeteria presents him. He ignores James for a while, but he’s still standing there, arms folded, and irritating grin on his face.

“I thought we were done with pining over Shiro,” Griffin counters smoothly and pulls a chair back. He’s sitting down opposite Keith, who accepted that the end of this day will only slowly come. Keith doesn’t even try to deny James’ words. Why the effort, when it’s apparently obvious? He doesn’t spare him a second glance while eating, but it’s not enough for James to simply stop.

“If you’d ask me, it’s always painful to watch, nowadays,” he sighs and puts his bowl of noodles down in front of him, “just as much as it was back then, too.”

That’s enough to get his blood riling - Keith wants to snarl a big _fuck you_ at _fuckface Griffin_ , but then he reminds himself, that he has grown, and it wouldn’t be the best to pick a fight at his current position.

Then again, it’s not enough of a reason to let it just slide. “Go fuck yourself, Griffin,” he growls in the end, ignoring any moral obligation, because stress shortens his temper.

Griffin says nothing and grins. He isn’t a mean guy per se – hasn’t been lately, at least. He _was_ a dick when they were kids and in the same class unluckily but grown up James got over himself quickly. Against all odds, usually, talking to James turned out alright. Keith should _try_ being nicer to him, too. But not right now, when he’s pushing his boundaries. Not now, when he tries to provoke him like back when they were fourteen years old.

Keith is about to get up, but James pulls him down by his wrist.

“Sorry! Sorry, for teasing you. I’m just getting curious,” he explains. Keith doesn’t answer – he doesn’t tell him that it’s not his place to be curious, just stares at him, unable to come up with a witty comeback.

James clears his throat, with Keith’s intense gaze on him, uncertainty blatant in his eyes. Keith’s gaze softens at that, wonders if it’s not James intention to crash and burn when talking to him, maybe he’s also not always good at social cues, just like Keith isn’t. Then again, he has always had a lot of friends. Maybe it’s just Keith who makes him doubt his popularity.

The brown haired MFE-Fighter gains more ground and pushes further. “Everyone can see how you carry your heart on your sleeve, so…why doesn’t he?” Their gaze meet, then James’ head drops down to his plate, as if he had forgotten why he was in the cafeteria in the first place. He starts eating his food, too. The situation is awkward, because Keith doesn’t understand – for the love of god – why they were sitting in the cafeteria and James is rather talking at than with him, even though he must have noticed that Keith feels too dull, too tired and too worn out from working and everything else is this week, to listen to James complaints about him and Shiro.

If he’s honest to himself, Keith doesn’t understand it either – for the biggest part of their relationship, he was always sure that Shiro knew what he meant to him. If even James could see it, why couldn’t he? But, Keith thinks, he won’t push. He isn’t even sure that Shiro loves him back. He doesn’t dare to assume, even though in the past, more often than not, it had felt that way.

Nothing had happened between them yet, although Keith has never been afraid to raise the stakes - Shiro is his most precious thing in this whole universe and having him is like _having it all._ Keith wants to give him all the time he needs for them to evolve into something different slowly, he treasures him that much, that he never wants to push. Keith never pushes – he also never asks. He never tries to overstep a line, especially lately, when things haven’t been quite…right. It should be understandable – the end of the war took a toll on everyone.

“I don’t know,” he exhales. Maybe he does know.

James’ lips curl downwards. He picks up a bite to eat, pushes the big chunks of food into his mouth. His slick brown hair falls into his face and he doesn’t push it back. It annoys Keith and he itches to just brush it out of his face.

“Right, okay.” It sounds just a bit too sarcastic for Keith’s taste and therefore gets his blood boiling.

“Why the...-” Nobody’s in the cafeteria besides them, so what’s the harm with cursing a little? “Why the _fuck_ are you asking me anyways? Like it’s any of your concern.”

James looks up to him, eyes wide, mouth slightly opened. He looks surprised; Keith’s heated words don’t make him angry anymore.

“I am,” he makes a stressed pause and says with a grin, “just a curious person.”

Keith doesn’t smile, even though the corners of his mouth itch to quirk up.

James grins wider, “ _you_ make me curious.”

“Also”, James adds after one look in Keith’s face - he’s treading to say his next words, “The day we set foot on Earth for the first time after the war had been the last time I saw you looking truly happy.”

That’s blunt. Keith’s mouth falls open.

It’s true. War is over, but…he feels restless. They have all the safety and time they want, but…he feels like things aren’t progressing, especially between him and Shiro. He doesn’t want to destroy what they have, doesn’t want to scare Shiro off, doesn’t want to ruin it for just one weak moment, so he’s sitting on the edge – just too afraid to move. And it shows, apparently, that he’s getting impatient. He swore himself to be there for him _forever_ , he thought being just like this was _always_ enough-

“Does everyone-?” _Does everyone know?_

“No _, no_ ,” James reassures him, “I think it’s just me.”

Keith looks down to the overcooked porridge on his plate and the grey vegetables, then at his hands. They aren’t shaking, but he almost expects them to be. He feels James’ look of concern burning underneath his skin, because mostly he doesn’t care what others think, but at this very moment he feels like an embarrassing loser.

“Like, your crush is obvious,” James explains quickly, in a desperate and clumsy attempt to help, “but the rest of the Garrison thinks it’ll work out between you two at some point.”

Keith grimaces, pushes his food from him, stands up and leaves the cafeteria, leaving the unspoken ‘ _I don’t think you do’_ back there together with _fucking_ Griffin.

*

They mostly meet in the desert, because Keith is reluctant to just walk into the Garrison after he quit his job without giving any sort of explanation. He also dreads meeting Shiro after he quit without a word.

Keith likes how James fucks him on the small bed in the shack - it’s been getting really, really good.

He doesn’t know how James does it and doesn’t understand how he can like it so much, but when he looks at this attractive face wrinkling over an arriving orgasm, he thinks it’s the best thing in the world to look at.

“Fuck,” Keith groans and moves against him. It’s not easy when James holds one of his legs up, but there’s enough friction already, so it’s okay.

“Keith,” he moans, and his face is getting really red, “Keith, I’m almost-” James pants.

Keith nods and reaches for his own dick, stroking himself hard, so they can come together.

They lie together afterwards, in a tight hug, because there’s barely enough space for one person in the bed. Keith wonders how his mother could ever live with his dad here back then.

James has an arm around him, boasting smile on his face, like Keith is his prize to be won. He often looks like that, especially in the afterglow.

Keith has a small grin on his face, too, struggling free from their joined limbs. When he’s able to look down on James’ face, he starts caressing his face, thumbs over his eyebrows, then over his nose. James looks up to him, grinning wider. Keith can’t hold his gaze and has to look away, because he knows what this look means… so he looks out of the window instead.

“I have fantasies of fucking you raw and without lube,” James confesses out of the blue as he caresses Keith’s chest. It’s a good try to get back Keith’s attention.

He snaps his eyes right back at him with a deep furrow in his eyebrows.

“You’re a fucking idiot” he says, pushes against James’ shoulder and rolls to the side, away from him. James laughs and hugs him from behind.

“Obviously we’re never going to do that,” he explains quickly, “but just …the thought really turns me on. I simply wanted to share.”

“If you think that’ll interest me into doing another round, you really _are_ delusional,” Keith mutters and turns his head to face James’ invidious attractive face. He’s not disappointed because of Keith’s reaction, just chuckling lightly.

Keith wishes he could wipe the big grin off his face, but when James leans down to kiss him, every thought he had before ceases to exist. James kisses him all night, _him_ … _Keith_ , small and hurt Keith, who’s already drifting off into dreams, dazed and full of confusing and violent feelings that storm in his heart, who is thinking of James’ big dreamy grin and his muscular but lean build, _idiot_ -Keith, who is suddenly thinking that he hasn’t seen Shiro in a while, _hurt_ Keith, who doesn’t want to hurt anyone else.

It’s a cruel thought, when he’s lying here with James, but it’s nothing he can stop. James does know, after all, about his feelings for Shiro.

“Your weird fantasies are not going to happen,” he mumbles with his eyes closed, but grins too, because he feels James’ wide smile on him, and it’s too honest to not give it right back.

His head feels heavy, suddenly. He reaches out for his face, thumbs over the cheek and opens his eyes to smile at him again before he slowly lets his arm sink down again. James touches his scar in return, rubs with his thumb over it softly – he looks into Keith’s eyes quickly enough to catch his guarded look, but doesn’t comment on it.

Instead, James only laughs and kisses him for what feels like hours - until Keith is feeling big and visible again, feels like he’s there, back on earth, again, safe and warm and heavy, until he’s dozing off, flying towards the moon, dreaming about floating in the cold harsh galaxy and reaching for glittering bright yellow stars.

*

It all started innocently enough, and now they’re here.

It started with James asking him out three times a week (“just to hang out, not a date!”) – grinning widely and asking him in the worst situations possible – until Keith, instead of just not answering, decided to give it a go.

“You get one chance,” he says, and doesn’t know why he’s agreeing to it. He can’t let go of his feelings. Not now. Not ever, possibly.

The date is fine – but Keith thinks it’s the end of it. James is nice, he’s good looking, and he likes him (he thinks). Keith wonders since when James had developed feelings for him, but he doesn’t ask. James doesn’t tell him (yet).

The first kiss doesn’t happen until they’ve been meeting for weeks, and when they kiss, Keith tries desperately to erase all the images he created of _Shiro_ kissing himfrom his mind. It doesn’t work.

He’s not crying, but it’s a close one.

James asks him if he doesn’t want this – but somehow Keith does. He’s aching for love and for someone to love him back – he always thought he wasn’t a big hugger, but oh, does he crave human touch. James holding his hand reminds him of every little one of Shiro’s careful touches – because it’s just as gentle and feels just as real.

“I don’t know if we should stop this,” Keith tells James once when they are sitting on the roof, watching the stars. James doesn’t answer, just puts an arm around his shoulders. He smells good. The air smells amazing, fresh and like summer, and a small warm breeze hits Keith’s face. All in all, he should feel good, but then he looks up to the stars and icy universe, and he remembers all the moments he had with Shiro that felt like it was a big love romance out of a fucking movie, all the moments where stars where glittering over their heads and he could have just kissed him and hoped for the best.

But Shiro is closing off lately and he’s losing him. They still see each other regularly, but he somehow can’t recognize him anymore.

“I know that I don’t want this to stop”, James tells him softly, takes his hand in his. He leans in to kiss him, but Keith pulls back.

“Sorry.”

But James shakes his head – he isn’t offended.

They are sitting a while in silence, breathing and feeling. Keith feels too much, it seems.

“I’m afraid”, he finally says and then laughs ironically, “I fought the whole universe and fought myself, fought _him_ – but I’m still afraid, and it’s because of him. I’m afraid I’m losing him, and I’m also afraid that…in the end I’ll never …had him.” It’s more truth than necessary – but it’s the right amount of truth.

James exhales deeply next to him. “He’s not worth sacrificing your happiness for him, Keith. Nobody is.”

It’s not that Keith doesn’t know, he does indeed. It just never felt like a sacrifice to him – it only feels that way _now_ , when Shiro’s brooding, when he’s not being honest with him. He can’t blame him, because Shiro went through hell and back. They’ve both been through war and worse – the fight, Haggar…Shiro thought she had killed Keith.

“You have him,” James says, his eyes are red and intense.

“What do you mean?”

“The way he looks at you, the way he treats you. You have him – I know that much. But I think there’s something holding him back and it slowly feels like he’ll never be ready to face it.”

Keith thinks about it – and he just doesn’t know what to think about it.

“So, what am I going to do?” he asks himself.

“I don’t know,” James shrugs. “But Keith,” he says and takes his hand, “I’m here, here with you. I’m not trying to make life painful for myself with letting you into it, and I have to know if there’s a chance, that this…relationship will go somewhere. I’m okay if you don’t think that it will – I can do that, for a while.”

He takes his hand. “But I’ve got feelings, too. And I like you.”

Keith looks at him, James, bashful James, _Idiot-Griffin_ , and he realizes how much they both changed…they matured. It feels safe, it feels good to be with him, but a small voice in his mind reminds him that he tried giving up his feelings for Shiro before and failed, because in the end, he can never walk away from him.

*

They are lying in the bed in the shack again. Keith leans against James’ chest, eyes closed. He listens to the steady heartbeat, likes his smell, likes his warmth, he’s lying there, satisfied and happy.

There must be a solution, for all of this, he thinks.

“I like you,” James says. For the second time now, since they are together (officially, at least for them), he had told him. Keith crawls up to him, takes his face into his hand, kisses him, long and slowly. “Thanks,” he says with all his heart can manage, “I like you, too.”

When they are lying on the bed like that, exhausted and satisfied, Keith thinks that the world is alright again. It becomes easier to not think of Shiro – and he knows why.

“James,” he says, voice tight.

“Hm?”

“I’m going to quit my job at the Garrison.” He lets it sink in for him.

James first says nothing, then he sits up.

“What?!” he asks in disbelief. Because in James eyes, Keith is doing great there, he’s hard working and efficient – unbelievable to everyone that knew him as the ‘discipline case’ he was, a decade ago – but he managed to get a higher position, to have a good career for his future—

“It feels right to do so,” Keith’s voice is emotionless. It’s a cut – deep and clean. It’s easier to not care or love someone if you see them less often.

James is reluctant to agree, but he also understands without Keith giving him an explanation. “You’re sure of it,” he simply states and leans back into the mattress and looks at the ceiling.

“Yeah. I made my decision.”

Keith gets pushed back into the sheets, James is hovering over him, grin bashful and happy, he doesn’t even try to contain his smile. Keith feels something drop in his stomach but smiles back.

James leans down, brushes some hair out of Keith’s face, then kisses him. He knows, that he’s pouring all his feelings in the press of his lips and hopes it’s the right decision. It must be. It _needs_ to be, even if James doesn’t expect anything.

*

The end comes the day Shiro knocks rapidly at his door.

It’s Shiro, _his_ Shiro. Eyes full of sparkle and life, heart full of energy. Keith’s mesmerized within seconds, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. The urge to just grab Shiro’s head, shove him against the wall and kiss him is strong, stronger than _he_ is, therefore he’s lucky that Shiro excuses himself quickly enough and heads back to the Garrison before something happens.

Keith has never been one for rational decisions. If he had thought one or two seconds about it, he would have known that it wasn’t the best idea to get on a ship – after he quit his job, after he started things with James – just for him and Shiro to leave planet Earth and travel space.

The thing is – this idea isn’t new. It’s something they talked about when they were younger, when he was still a cadet and Shiro was Iverson’s right hand. It was something they talked about because they wanted it in the future, even after Shiro would get married to a husband that didn’t want him in space, even knowing that surviving the next few years wasn’t a given for Shiro back then. For Keith, there was no way him and Shiro travelling through space wouldn’t happen, and when he looks back, it still feels as magical, it still feels as destined, it still feels as if it was always written in the stars, long before they were born.

Keith’s not rational, but he’s trying to do things right.

He gives Shiro a headstart to avoid meeting him again by chance and having to explain why he went to the Garrison at night. He nonetheless follows him back and slips past security right after him because it’s the easiest way to get inside at this hour.

The halls are dark and quiet, and he can easily walk through the corridors without being seen. It only takes a few minutes to get to the dorms - instead of knocking at Shiro’s door what he did sometimes in between work with the Blades and staying at the shack, he’s knocking at James’. It only takes a minute or two for him to answer it, face looking surprised at seeing Keith right in front of him.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asks and opens the door wider so Keith can come in.

Keith’s heart aches. James is happy to see him without question - and it makes his heart drop to his feet.

“Nothing…much,” Keith says probably the opposite of what it looks like with him appearing here in the middle of the night, looking as tense as he feels. Every voice in his head screams at him to not do what he’s about to do.

“What’s wrong?”

Keith still stands in front of the room, unwilling to enter. James raises his eyebrows, the suspicion that something is going on visible in his face; wordlessly he pulls him into his arms.

Keith lets it happen and feels the dread in his stomach again.

It takes a while to get it out, but it’s easier to rip a bandage of than to pull it off slowly—

It’s easier to make it quick—

“We have to break up,” he tells him. And that’s the end of it.

*

It’s worse than a ripped off band-aid.

Since he’s got his job back at the Garrison, that means he can’t hide away from James. On top of that he’s unsuccessfully trying to prevent their paths from crossing. He appreciates James’ efforts to handle the situation without being rude, but he’s hurt, and it shows too. It’s especially noticeable when Keith is with Shiro, idly sitting in the cafeteria on a regular basis, because for James it’s a big obvious hit in his face.

Keith knows that all the MFE fighters, who count as James’ friends, hate him from the deep core of their heart since he broke up with him – even the blond neutral one wears an expression that gets crinklier every time she’s looking at him. He can feel their looks burning on his skin, and it’s so painfully obvious even Shiro becomes aware of it. He is not saying anything; just offers his help with any issues Keith might have. Keith isn’t religious, but he thanks God for letting Shiro not immediately read the situation.

The night before their departure, James comes over uninvited. Keith’s not an idiot, he anticipated it. Opening the door and looking at his face lets hell loose – all the conflicted feelings he buried since the break-up resurface and throw him off. He knows _now_ , that not a single one of those feelings is of love, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes: Given a little more time, his feelings would have been on the best way to change into it.

“You hurt me, but I still like you,” James comes straight to the point as he enters the room. He sits down the only chair that sits in the middle of the room. “Please know that I wish you the best for the mission.” It comes out easier than it presumably is, and Keith can only guess how much it takes for James to be the bigger person right now.

“I know,” Keith says, then crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“With Shiro, too,” James adds, voice breathless.

“Thanks.” Keith is answering in one word-sentences, because he doesn’t know what to say or what he will say if he lets out more. He scolds himself inwardly that that cannot be how they part, so he pulls himself together and—

“You know, I’m not doing this because I hope I have a chance with him,” he says.

James looks at him with tired eyes and bags under it. “No need to explain yourself.”

His voice isn’t as cold as he tries for it to be. Keith wishes he’d be colder, just to make it easier for him. But coming here, talking to him, it’s not easy. Whatever James thinks will be accomplished by that, it must be important to him.

“I _know_.”

Keith loosens his arms and lets them hang at his side. He wants to explain himself – even though he knows that there’s no explanation good enough for this.

“It would be easier to just hate you,” James starts and leans against the wall. “If I had known from the start that your only goal was to be alone in space with him to bone him it would have been way easier to write you off as a douche bag and to just casually fuck you.”

Keith snorts. It’s allowed, he thinks. James knows, too, how ridiculous it sounds at least. He could have said no to James from the beginning, but he didn’t. He doesn’t regret it, not for one second. But now they are standing here like that, because Keith cannot say no to Shiro either. He wishes he was able to.

“I know, you’re trying to be fair,” James says. His head drops. “And I hope the chance you gave us was real.” His voice lost all faked casualness, and what’s left of it sounds broken. Keith cannot bear listening to it, _his_ heart aches, _too_. He never wanted to hurt him.

James raises his voice again, and what he says next pierces through his heart.

“All those months I kept thinking that you never even _tried_ to get over him from the beginning, and that hurts, retrospectively.”

His head is still hanging between his shoulders, facing downwards. Although Keith wants to comfort him in any possible way, he holds himself back. He doesn’t want to tell promises he can’t keep, doesn’t want to send signals that are mixed.

Keith thinks he gave them a real chance, went out with him, kissed him, had sex with him, quit the Garrison to get away from Shiro and his feelings to him – but maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe he changed his mind too quickly, could not let go of his last string of hope, or maybe he wanted to handle the situation like an uptight lawyer – trying to make only promises he can keep, with a way out always within reach.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says and puts a hand on James shoulder. It’s weak, but it’s all he has. “Sorry for hurting you. I wanted it to work. Sorry. James, I’m so sorry.”

He looks up at him, eyes tired, like he dragged every thought around in his head already.

“Aren’t you done, saving him?”

When Keith doesn’t answer, James walks out on him, out of the door, not sparing him a second glance.

***

Keith wakes with a headache from crying and his mood is dramatically dropping when he thinks of last night.

From all the things that could have happened between them, this was the absolute worst-case scenario. Hoping to black out all the memories of last night is fruitless. He’s thinking about it when he gets up, when he takes a shower (which is most inconvenient), when he gets dressed, when he’s braiding his hair (it’s getting longer and longer), when he’s dreading to go outside and meet him.

He thinks about Shiro’s face, how he looked like when he touched him, how _he_ touched him, how he looks like when he orgasms…

– and Keith just knows that he’s doomed to remember last night till the day he dies.

He’s grasping for that last string of hope to avoid direct confrontation, but the first thing he sees when he gets out of his own room is Shiro’s white fluff of hair and his immediately tensing back.

“Morning,” Keith greets, because apparently you can’t escape a disastrous situation on a small spaceship fit for two people and one wolf. He sees Kosmo appearing next to Shiro, startling him – the Altean arm absentmindedly pats his big soft head. Kosmo is positively happy about it. Keith wonders what might have brought the change, and settles with the fact that what he feels, his space wolf feels, too. It’s that easy and _that_ obvious. He hopes nobody else can catch up on it as fast as him.

He takes his seat next to Shiro at his own control pad – last night was full of contemplation of how he can act normal around him, but there’s nothing he can do to change what happened. Just forgetting the whole thing without saying anything? He can’t do that. And he should…if Shiro isn’t addressing it either.

Keith got to know Shiro as straightforward, someone who was on top of things easily – but romantic or sexual-only relationships barely count the same as being a good pilot or being top of the class, and it’s natural that he has to be bad at something, while he exceeds at everything else. If he didn’t know before, he knows _now_ that Shiro was simply bad at love. He doesn’t need a bigger proof than Shiro telling him that they are arriving in under one Vargas – without saying anything else, considerably about last night – that he’s really that bad.

On the other hand – Keith isn’t that much better.

Shiro might have dropped his fiancé to go to space, but-

Even now Keith thinks it was the right decision. He remembers how he loathed Adam for his breaking up with him, remembers how even back then he wondered why he’d be that emotionally invested in something that had nothing to do with himself (of course it was because it’s Shiro. _Shiro_ ).

He’s not that much better, Keith thinks to himself. He left his boyfriend for space – and for another guy (kind of) on top of that, too.

“You slept alright?” Shiro asks – sounding completely oblivious. Keith recognizes the tone, it’s telling that Shiro’s not feeling good either, but…

They _are_ bad at this.

“I think so.” It’s everything Keith can bring himself to say, and it’s also a big, burning lie. He looks like shit and if Shiro would dare to look at him, he could see that, too.

“Right.”

In the moment that Keith wonders if the rest of their journey will just be them standing awkwardly in a room, not really talking, they are both startled by a symbol that’s rapidly blinking in front of their screens.

They exchange a gaze, then look back at the small pink phone symbol.

“Is that your…therapist?” Keith asks tentatively.

“No, I don’t think so. We don’t have an appointment today.”

The words Incoming Call appear on the screen now, too.

“Guess we should take that one,” Shiro just shrugs and pushes a few buttons. The screen flickers and a familiar face gets visible on screen. Shiro’s eyes widen.

“Yooooooo, what’s up?” A grin as big as the whole screen appears and the person holds two thumbs up.

“Matt,” Keith calls out, surprised.

“Hey guys, how y’all do…woah, did something happen?” Keith watches Matt’s face going from excited to concerned within seconds. Shiro and him are exchanging an awkward glance.

“Just tired,” Keith lies, “We ran into some uh… space _logorans_ yesterday.”

“Ah, explains the _dark as dark matter_ eye circles on both of your faces.”

Shiro shifts in his seat.

“Yeah. Right. So, what’s up Matt?” He can’t spot anything familiar in the background, so that must mean… “Are you traveling around, too?”

“Yup,” Matt looks smug, “Guess who started a journey—”

“The Holts did? Already? I thought Sam said it would take another while.”

“He also said that he won’t work day and night on it for the next few months, and you know what? Mom got extremely mad at him.” Despite passing the message that Colleen Holt was mad at her husband, Matt’s eyes were shining brightly. “But he can rest now! I’m the first one to test the new ships – couldn’t stay on Earth for a long time either, but hey, I’m glad we can meet up soon!”

Shiro and Keith exchange another glance.

“What do you mean, Matt?” Keith asks with a dubious tone in his voice, while Shiro stays silent.

“I arrived on Timptaimi around a week ago. That was supposed to be your next destination, right?”

They both nod – tired from last night’s lack of sleep.

“Well,” Matt says after the rather long pause of nobody saying anything, thinking that the reaction to hear from him is underwhelming, “guess I’ll see you two in a bit.”

“Yeah,” Shiro says, shakes his head and scratches the back of it.

“Sorry, Matt, we’re a bit dumbfounded – I guess,” he looks to Keith who keeps his gaze locked on the screen, locked on Matt’s face, and continues, “I’m happy we’ll see you soon. Let’s catch up when we land.”

They end the call and resign to silence.

Keith gets into his seat and resumes to thinking about yesterday, before everything else went to shit – they talked and had fun together, everything was easy, they were opening up until they opened up too much – skipped five steps in becoming better friends again and ran head-first into an undefined relationship that left them with more question marks than answers.

Keith remembers telling James that going on this mission wasn’t to get it on with Shiro.

There’s a reason Keith can’t bring himself up to speak about it. It’s because yesterday hadn’t been an ending to a long going wait, but rather a ‘ _now I can get over with it’_ to his own hurt feelings. He wants yesterday to stay unresolved, because he’d have to acknowledge that although he has feelings for Shiro, that they weren’t the driving force behind sleeping with him. Worse is, that he doesn’t know Shiro’s reason either. For all he knows, he just went along with it and had been unattached completely. Maybe just blue balls in space. Whatever.

Until they land both Shiro and him take turns in watching the landing and dressing up. There’s an official event to greet them on the planet, so they have to look presentable. Keith thinks that no matter how far they go in the universe, a prom seems to be a universal thing to greet new guests and that there’s no escape from awkward official meetings.

When the ship lands, the first person they run into is Matt, dressed in something foreign and festive looking. “You got clothes from the locals?” Keith asks him while they hug. Matt nods, gives them both a look up and down, before he says: “Nice Earth Suits. Keith, your suit looks like it hasn’t been ironed since eighth grade.”

“I guess I felt too safe thinking that no one here would notice…since no one from Earth was expected to be here,” he squints at Matt who gives him an apologizing look.

Before Matt can answer, Shiro breaks their friendly banter to inform them that he’s going to greet the coalition head from the planet.

Matt looks after him, until he’s out of hearing range. “So, you’re going to tell me what happened between you two?”

Keith folds his arms, gaze dropping to his left. He takes in the surroundings of the new planet, violet, crumbly surface and only a few houses. He looks back to Matt, who’s still waiting for an answer. “Justa, uh, small fight,” he answers.

Matt had been only one or two years above him, back during the Garrison Days, which hadn’t meant a lot to Keith personally. They sometimes crossed ways - he remembers asking Matt to help him with homework once. Then there’s another memory of Shiro talking to Matt about the upcoming mission – but other than that, there’s nothing else.

Still, Matt seems to know him and Shiro better than he thought.

“Just?” He almost shouts – then notices the panic in Keith’s eyes, the fear of being heard, although Shiro walked into the official building seconds ago. He lowers his voice. “I mean, you hardly ever had a disagreement until now. You know, _Keith and Shiro, dream-team. They never fight._ Ugh,” he comically holds his head, “You know the jingle they wrote for that TV special about the Paladins is just _too_ catchy.”

Keith ignores the fact that there is yet another movie adaption of their live story, wants to protest and tell Matt that they did have little fights in the past, but when he thinks about it, it was Shiro’s clone, not Shiro.

“Yeah,” he simply breathes out and rubs at his eye. His face must tell him a lot, because Matt looks at him in sympathy.

“Shit, dude- Keith, I’m sorry”, Matt quickly pulls him into a one -armed hug, “Shit, forget I asked. Let’s, uhm, uh- let’s just walk a bit, we’ll go in later.”

Keith doesn’t tell Matt, and Matt doesn’t ask about Shiro. He just asks what he has been doing on Earth after the war, then he talks a while about himself, tells him about Pidge – Keith remembers that he wanted to check up on her too, and Matt promises him that they’ll call her together later, while they are on this planet.

When they reunite with Shiro, they both get introduced to the coalition representative – a fierce and wonderful alien lady with three heads and her companion, a… _cat_.

“I didn’t know they’d exist here, too,” Keith says while watching the cat. It’s watching him back intensely and they have a little stare off until, without warning, Kosmo appears next to him. His space wolf looks first at him, then drops his gaze on the cat, nothing in his eyes but curiosity.

Shiro’s looking at the cat, too. It’s at that moment, when Keith remembers Haggar’s cat – his pulse rises, but he has to remind himself that they are not the same and that Haggar is dead – they don’t have to fear her anymore. An alien cat that just looks like a regular alien cat is nothing to be afraid of.

He realizes too late the concerned look that Shiro throws him and turns toward the coalition representative from Timptaimi. “Is that an animal that’s, uh, widespread around here?”

“Yes indeed, tamurikels are the most popular companions on our planet. It’s…no wonder, as they are incredibly fluffy,” the coalition representative brushes back the hair on her one head and continues to do so with the other two heads as well. “I see you chose a companion yourself, Black Paladin,” all her heads nod in Keith’s direction, then, one looks back at Kosmo.

Keith nods, but doesn’t say anything. One of the heads turn to Shiro: “You want to choose one, too, White Paladin?” She catches Shiro off guard, but he smiles and thinks for a moment or two about it, then shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Hahah, naaah, a kitty is no good. This guy can’t even care for himself.” Matt chimes in, unapologetically so. Five heads are raising an eyebrow at him.

Matt leans back. “I’m joking. Just joking.”

They stand there and continue the conversation; but Keith zones out completely from it, unable to hear their voices anymore. Then, something hits without a warning.

Keith feels something in his stomach turn – then there’s a light blinding them all. It feels like there’s something – a rip in reality – a timeline changing – nobody seems to notice – they just chatter on. He lets his bayard appear in his hand, ready to fight if there’s danger approaching. But he’s still standing within the group – and suddenly everything becomes clear again: Shiro is still looking at the cat or as they call it, tamurikel, listening to Traivra, the coalition representative as she asks Shiro once again if he wants a companion too. Before the rest of the conversation repeats, Keith voices a confused “What was that?” and tries to focus on only one of Traivra’s three heads currently all staring into his direction.

“You noticed it?” All three heads bark at him at the same time. “That’s unusual for an Earthling.”

“Noticed what?” Matt asks.

Keith holds his head, because a small headache follows. “I guess I noticed. What was that?” Traivra’s stern gaze holds his. “We had some issues with time jumping in the last _spicolian movement_.”

“What?” Shiro joins in.

“Isn’t that super dangerous?”, Matt asks, “I didn’t even notice during my stay,” he exclaims. Traivra’s heads are separating to glare back at every single one of them.

“Earthlings, please calm down – everything is under control. We could use some help from the Paladins later, though.”

Shiro looks to Keith, then to Matt. “That could be arranged. When?”

“We do not have to hurry yet,” Traivra answers and it’s only one head speaking now (the others are quietly looking around). “As I said, the situation is under control – if something changes here, it stays within range and is not considered a severe change, as nature can figure it out on his own here. People don’t feel too affected either. Earthlings don’t notice it at all, usually. You will probably not notice until a week in –

“As for you, Black Paladin, I don’t know for sure. But you’ll handle it alright,” Traivra’s own head interrupts her, the middle one. Her mouths quirk up into a smile, even on the unfocused head that is simply looking around. “We heard _great_ of you already.”

Keith doesn’t react, just look at her.

“What’s next?” Matt asks Traivra and all her mouths quirk downwards.

The prom had started without them. That way they could stay in the background – although they are honored guests, on Timptaimi it seems to be impolite to focus too much attention on them, at least that’s what Matt tells them.

“Or maybe, we’re not that important.” Shiro shrugs and takes a plate of food.

“Traivra seems to be the only one with more than one head… at least in this ball room,” Keith notices absentmindedly.

“That’s because it’s pretty seldom to be born with more than one head on this planet, but it does happen once in a while. Traivra told me, that it’s an honor and puts you into a position of power, but only if you pass the trials of Timptaimi…if you don’t, you’ll be hanged, she says.”

“Good for her, then,” Keith answers, “that she passed, I guess.” He puts something into his mouth that vaguely looks like three red potatoes on a salty stick.

“I’m not sure if she was joking with that last part,” Matt continues as his eyes wander through the room. Some idle music is playing, pierced with some funky metal songs in between. “I recommended some of those nice songs,” he says and nods, pleased with himself.

“The metal songs?” Shiro asks and sips on a glass with a blubbering violet liquid.

Matt nods, still proud. He’s standing between Shiro and Keith near a window, moving along to the beat of the music. When Matt stays silent, nobody else is talking and only the awkward silence and the music is audibly in the background. The people in the ballroom are mostly ignoring them, only some nod politely (which is expected, according to Matt), but then turn away, eat and start to dance.

“Sooo,” Matt draws that one syllable out unbearably long, “I’m going to suggest the DJ another song I want to hear tonight.” And then he’s gone, leaving Shiro and Keith behind.

Because it would be awkward to stand two feet apart from each other otherwise, they shuffle closer, without looking at each other.

“Nice suit,” Shiro says, after thinking a long time about what to say to him with the result that he comes up empty-handed. Keith doesn’t respond.

“Interesting that you’re the only one noticing the time jumps.” It’s another try to get closer to him without addressing the elephant in the room. Shiro still tries, crashes and burns. Keith doesn’t answer, especially because he feels compelled to act his anger out on him.

If Keith thinks about it, the situation is ridiculous. He thinks about James, James who is in love with him and who he left behind, because of – what the hell – he knows, because of what?

Although he never expected anything from Shiro, he somehow still expected him to be true to his feelings – he _knows_ , he just knows, that Shiro loves him, somehow. He doubted it on Earth, but… It wouldn’t make sense, otherwise, he just knows. So why is it so hard for them?

If he hadn’t broke up his relationship with James and hadn’t dodged getting serious with him, if he hadn’t just accepted that his love for Shiro wasn’t going to fade and given it a little more time, they might not have to deal with this situation at all.

And on the other side, he loves it, loves being here, loves being in space, with Shiro. He can’t even bring himself up to hate it, although he’s hurt.

“Did I hurt you?” Shiro asks, voice lowered, in hope of letting no one else hear that conversation.

Keith can’t bring himself up to say, yes, he did. So, he says nothing, instead – not to punish Shiro trying to talk to him, but because he doesn’t know what to say – how to ease a situation like this. Or maybe he’s just a little bit disappointed and it makes it harder to open his mouth and spill the truth.

“Are we never going to talk about this, Keith?”

Keith turns to him, looks him in the eyes. Shiro’s eyes are soft around the corners – he wants to reach out to his friend, his love. “I want to,” he starts and trails off. It’s too much. Shiro in his suit, bright white hair, his soft face…

“Then let’s tal—” Shiro says, face soft and reaching out.

“Party time!!!” Matt interrupts them at the worst possible time and throws himself at them, hugs them both close. “Let’s dance,” he whispers into Shiro’s ear, leaning way too close. Matt probably panicked when he saw Keith not replying, or at least that’s what Keith hopes this is.

They are being pulled towards the dance floor where a handful of Timptaimir greet them happily and applaud them for dancing with them. “Wait, Matt-“ Keith tries to stop him, but he doesn’t listen.

Obviously.

The three of them are dancing clumsily in a circle while holding each other’s hands, until Matt leaves them at the beginning of a slow song. Keith looks at some rather expecting faces (and three of them are Traivra’s) so he sucks it up and takes Shiro’s hand.

“I can’t dance,” Shiro tells him, and Keith shrugs it off. “Me neither.”

They do the first tentative steps together in the dim light of the ballroom, sway back and forth for a while and when Shiro stumbles backwards over someone, Keith has to grip his hip to keep him from falling.

“Ah-“ he sighs, then smiles at Keith. “You’ve caught me.”

It’s such a soft expression that Keith wants to melt on the spot – he wants to lean forward and press Shiro to him, kiss him, gentle but fierce. But that wouldn’t be the right approach, he reminds himself. It hasn’t been.

“Let’s talk,” Keith reminds him softly. He puts his arms around Shiro’s neck and draws him closer. Shiro looks at him, vulnerable and open – it’s obvious that he doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing that leaves his lips – Keith for his side wouldn’t have started with that, but he won’t be impatient.

“For what?” he asks, because he suspects that Shiro might not know what he’s sorry for.

Shiro drops his gaze and looks down at his feet – might be because he’s embarrassed as well as in fear of tripping again. “For …not acting responsible.”

Keith needs to take a deep inhale, his pulse is rising too – he didn’t know when his temper got the better of him yet again – but he’s breathing in and out, slowly, steadily.

“What do you mean?” he asks instead of yelling and hopes Shiro knows what to answer.

“I didn’t act right in a vulnerable moment. I should have known something wasn’t right, and I still…” he leans in more and Keith gets a whiff of his amazing scent, “…slept with you. I’m sorry.”

Keith thinks that if he had three heads like Traivra did and less self-control, all of them would explode into screeching and shouting. He bites his teeth together instead and translates: “You’re sorry about using me?”

“Yes,” Shiro answers and they both trip over their feet, but this time it’s Shiro who catches them.

“I can’t believe you,” Keith hisses as Shiro leads him to do a quick turn, “I can’t believe you think you have to keep an eye on me like I’m a child. It was _me_ making a move on you, Shiro. Not the other way around!”

Keith lets him twist around and end up in his arm he stares into Shiro’s eyes and he stares back, they are close _too close_ – but they part quickly to continue dancing. Whatever they knew about dancing, basically nothing much but some moves from dance movies, translate into their own moving steps. He hopes Shiro doesn’t remember the time they watched ‘Dirty Dancing’ with Adam, because he’s sure out of pure helplessness Shiro would try and reenact ‘Baby’ being thrown into the air.

“I know, it’s just,” his voice got louder, but he lowers it again when he’s catching him by the hips before he falls and holds him against his chest, “I realized it wasn’t your first time – we haven’t been talking a lot before about things like that so I just figured… there is someone, right?”

Keith eyes shoot up at him – wide open and full of fear – he doesn’t want him to know it like _this_ – he realizes that Shiro must have had his own thoughts despite not talking about it, thinking that Keith probably cheated with him on someone else.

It must be by sheer will that the room starts flickering and the time turns back to a few minutes ago – Shiro’s back to standing next to Matt again, with the brown-haired guy idly talking.

Keith lets out a breath he’s been holding while he listens to Matt talking about metal and Shiro asking about his favorite band. He must have tuned out – this time Matt didn’t disappear, and he’s not left to talk to Shiro alone.

They have to talk – they need to –

They must, if they want to navigate and define their current rocky relationship. The moment is over – there’s no dance, no talk between them both, they are standing here together with Matt, drinking whatever fruity drink there is at the buffet. Keith is relieved and hopes that the time jumps he’s experiencing will always act on his behalf and help him to escape uncomfortable situations going wrong like before and make figuring things out with Shiro easier.


	5. - can be ignored, kept it for the nice comments -

So, I've seen that there is pretty much zero activity on this fic, so I've been thinking if it's worth finishing at the moment. I have a lot on my plate otherwise and if no one is really interested in it, I absolutely get that, but I also won't hurry finishing it (or finish it at all). Just a fair heads up

Edit: 

So this fic will be continued! My honest concern was that absolutely no one really read it (since no comments at all on previous chapters despite 20k words of writing). Thanks for those who left comments, you really encouraged me in that my writing isn't shit lol and that this story makes sense somehow.


	6. If I Could Turn Back Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith wants to talk, to clear things up, but the whole universe (as usual) is getting in his way - on top of that, the meeting on the new planet Timptaimi offers a new challenge for them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took such a long time to write and I changed it many times - I actually thought I'd be much faster than I thought, but yeah, writing takes a lot of time and from when I first started writing this fic until now it changed a lot in how I'm writing and how much effort I put in it (spoiler alert: a lot more effort then before lol).
> 
> After I wrote that I'm not sure if anyone is reading this anyways & lost passion for this fic that started to get much longer than I expected it to be, many of you reached out to write comments & I'm really thankful for that. I hope some of you can keep this habit and give me your thoughts on this fic, because it's a lot more motivational when I know someone is reading this.
> 
> Anyways, I plan to respond to your comments soon. Thanks again and I hope you enjoy this chapter, I put a lot of heart in it.  
> Without further ado, enjoy your read, and you can always come to me on Twitter to chat with me!

Chapter V - If I Could Turn Back Time

* * *

* * *

When Shiro decided to turn in for the night, Keith had stayed outside to chat with Matt, who wouldn’t stop side-eyeing him during their conversation.

They weren’t offered places to lodge in the night, but Matt excuses this as another characteristic of this planet’s people, that they ‘ _don’t like to offer too much and leave each other enough space’_. It’s odd, but Keith likes it, it gives them some freedom and less hustle because there’s nothing to misunderstand – it’s not cruelty or dislike, just polite distance.

With Matt Shiro and Keith have a plus one nobody planned for, but Keith quickly stated that it wouldn’t be a problem for him to stay with them - until Matt decided to stay at his room.

Later, after Matt insisted on sleeping on the floor in the ship’s control room for about half an hour, Keith called it a night and just went to lie in his own bed with the words _‘can’t stop you from doing whatever you’d like to do_ ’. Later, when he wakes up repeatedly from his dreams, Matt is curled around him tightly. It’s not easy to get back to sleep with so little space, on top of Keith being up half the night because there are other things bothering him, too.

Even though Keith doesn’t catch a lot of sleep, the night passes quickly. When he does, there are dreams of dancing with Shiro in an empty ball room, of Keith tripping and falling and Shiro disappearing, leaving him alone in the wide hall. He dreams of James, too. He pushes through the great entrance doors and wears his Garrison uniform instead of his MFE fighter suit. He looks at Keith, since he’s the only one he can look at in the void room of his dreams. The disappointment in his face is open for him to see. ‘ _Was it worth it?’,_ James asks him repeatedly, lips not moving, making Keith toss and turn in his sleep, the murmur following him until the next morning.

James wouldn’t talk like that, but the realism of the dream is terrifying. It still hurts. James’ face morphs into Matt’s face at some point, and that’s when Keith decides he certainly doesn’t want to sleep caged between two big, strong human arms anymore and wakes up.

Matt is snoring loudly at his side. It’s a short trip down to memory lane, to fun times in Galaxy Garrisons bunk beds at night with a roommate who snores just as loud, who was as fond of Keith as any of Keith’s classmates were of him – which meant, not at all. Keith already forgot his name.

Keith’s roommate always slept in his own bed and never held him in an iron grip _that_ hard to get out of (like Matt currently does), but Keith successfully struggles out of it and gets up and showers.

He doesn’t see Shiro until he meets him in the ship’s kitchen. He is standing at the stove and looks at the small tablet screen from the Garrison they both own. He’s currently arguing with it, while he’s flipping something that looks like green pancakes.

Keith’s curiosity leads him closer – his gaze falls onto the tablet standing on the counter at the side, and in the same moment as he recognizes his face, he also recognizes his voice. It’s Hunk.

“Morning,” he greets Shiro in a yawn. He just asked Hunk how long he needs to bake the pancakes. At hearing Keith’s voice, he swings around and one pancake blobs to the ground.

“Morning,” he stutters and bends over to get the pancake of the ground, but Kosmo is faster – appears out of thin air, take the pancake and disappears again. Keith has a feeling that this might not happened for the first time today.

“Ah…”

He briefly wonders if that’s what their relationship has become – him trying to communicate with Shiro and Shiro stuttering and being flustered. It’s cute, it’s because it’s _Shiro_ , but it doesn’t make the pain of not knowing what’s up go away. Neither does it clarify what he feels.

“Is that Keith?” the voice coming from the tablet sounds loud and excited. Keith shuffles into his view. “Yes. It’s Keith.”

“Oh man,” Hunk exclaims, “it’s good to see you! How are you doing? Battling space pirates all the time? Visiting the Balmeran? Doing nothing at all and just chilling? Oh man, a lot of tax money went into building your ship, right…”

“Uhm, Coalition Work and then actually we have some time to _chill_.” If you could call it that, Keith thinks, with a short glance at Shiro, who’s currently burning his second pancake.

“Space has been pretty quiet since the war is over,” Keith adds and tries one of the unburnt pancakes.

“Wow, it’s actually alright,” he mutters and Shiro’s smile drops.

“What do you mean with that?”

He’s ignored by both Keith and Hunk who resume to their conversation. “I guess I could go back again for some time, too,” Hunk tells him. Keith is surprised, but then he’s also not.

“That would be great,” Keith tells him, voice soft. He misses Hunk, comforting, careful and happy Hunk. Now that he sees him, he thinks how essential Hunk was for a comforting space travel.

“Cooking lesson is over, by the way. Tell that Shiro!”

“I’m actually still here,” he says, but doesn’t sound too offended. Keith grins and Shiro grins back. That’s some development for starters.

“Sorry Shiro. You did well!” Hunk’s smile hits them like a ray of sunshine. “I bet those are the best high protein pancakes you can find in the galaxy. Damn. I’d love to try them. The markets here don’t have many alien ingredients.”

“I’m bringing you some back,” Keith promises and earns another of Hunk’s great smiles. “Aw, Keith. Space is making you a softie.” He leans forward and grins.

Shiro moves into view, too, sits down next to Keith and pushes the plate of pancakes in the middle of the table, rips one of them into small pieces and cautiously shoves them into his mouth.

“It’s been so long since I talked to Keith,” Hunk tells Shiro. The short talk before the launch was nothing.

“What have you been up to?” Hunk sits down on a long, worn-out couch. “Oh wait, I think I remember some gossip. Didn’t you quit the Garrison? How come they let you on a space mission with their ship?” he furrows his eyebrows.

Keith takes the tablet in his hand and walks a few steps away from Shiro. “Uh, yeah, that’s hard to explain…”

But before he can come up with a good excuse, he hears a shout in the background. Someone is calling for Hunk.

“Uh, oh. Wait, my mom just called me. Keith, I will call you again soon, but I gotta go. Tell Shiro to keep practicing opening eggs without smashing the eggshells into the bowl. It’s an art, I get it. But eggshells aren’t the most nutritious part of the…”

_“HUNK”_

“Sorry, I’m coming. Bye Keith, bye Shiro,” he’s shouting now, too. “Love you guys.”

The screen goes dark – Keith throws his head back to look at Shiro, then Shiro looks to him. He’s leaning over the small counter and stumps some more pancakes into his mouth, then chews them slowly. It’s at least an upgrade to food-goo, Keith thinks.

“So, you’re actually cooking,” Keith says after a long pause. He takes two steps to get another bite of the greenish pancake. They are both silently chewing for a while. There’s a small round window next to the stove – outside the sun is rising steadily over the planet.

“Yeah. Therapy stuff,” Shiro answers, then looks up. Their gazes meet, and they are holding it, until Shiro looks flustered again and drops it.

“It’s been a long time since I did something with more than just a short-term goal in mind.”

“Right.” Keith thinks of all the plans Shiro made before. Training. Going to Space. Defeating Zarkon. Making Keith the Team-Leader of Voltron. One goal after another, looking only ahead and never back, doing only onto whatever was doable within a short time. Keith thinks of his illness, the sword of Damocles over his head that makes planning for the future impossible.

“What’s the long-term goal?”

Shiro takes half a minute to answer and when he speaks, he’s observing his fingernails. “Being able to care of myself.”

Keith is quick to reassure him. “You are able, Shiro.” Then, he thinks, he can’t not just take his hand. Shiro looks surprised first, but then, giving each other tentative touches was never an issue.

They sit there, hold hands, eat the pancakes, and it’s a sign for Keith that it’s going to be alright, even after the disaster talk of yesterday…which didn’t exist for Shiro. Thanks to time jumps.

“When I start believing that myself,” Shiro says and gives Keith a smile that leaves him breathless, “I might start thinking about taking care of a plant.” They share a smile – Keith is more than satisfied sharing this private, intimate moment with Shiro while eating breakfast – he thinks about making plans for the day after their work is done. They could talk more – they could be honest. They could walk inside the city, do their research, collecting samples, making plans. They have all the time they need, honestly – and it’s more Keith ever bargained for. It will become right, he thinks, with quiet moments like this.

Sadly it ends too soon, as does the happy feeling of intimate togetherness.

The doors slide back, and Matt enters the kitchen, takes a pancake which he proceeds to stuff into his mouth. When he looks at the kitchen island, down on their joined hands, he lets his eyes linger for only a few seconds before he mutters “Hell of a morning” and sits down in their midst.

“I gotta admit, I’ve never slept better than in your arms, Kogane,” Matt grins and grabs for a white plastic cup which he fills it with some juice from a box. Keith feels the grip of Shiro’s hand gets weaker.

“You’re the worst,” he tells him, “I struggled to breathe the whole night.”

Matt just grins and takes a sip, chewing thoughtfully before he looks to Shiro. “I think those pancakes are missing something.”

“Probably Carbs.”

“What? Why?? What’s the matter with you?”

Shiro smiles weakly and shrugs it off. The three of them idly talk about their plans for the day. Shiro and Keith leave their hands loosely intertwined over the kitchen isle, not moving or letting go, at least until Matt decides on head over early to the conference rooms to video chat with his family. Only when Matt is gone again and they are alone, dressed, standing outside the ship, Shiro gains enough confidence to ask him. “Not trying to pry, but why did you quit the Garrison in the first place?”

Keith curses Hunk for bringing it up and Shiro for not forgetting it. Then, it’s also unusual for Shiro to care about something like that, or to speak about something Keith obviously never tried to bring up by himself.

It’s not Shiro’s thing to dig deeper, usually, but yet, here they are.

“Was it because of someone?”

Keith remembers now, that their last talk ended with Shiro mentioning something similar. He knows about James, although he doesn’t _really_ know. Keith doesn’t know, why the question brings him onto the edge.

“Did you think there never would be someone?” he asks him back.

They are walking side by side a small trail from their ship towards the official buildings. It’s right next to a small city with multiple square formed buildings.

Shiro walks in front, not looking back.

“Of course not.”

It’s burning hot outside, even in their spacesuits. The planet has three ‘suns’; sun-like stars, after all.

Keith wants him to slow down, to wait for him, show his face, but Shiro is steadily walking on.

“And you?” he runs after him and grabs his arm, “Was there someone?

The second sun of the planet is rising steadily over their heads, Shiro is looking down at Keith’s hand on his arm, then up to his face.

“What a question,” he jokes, but Keith is having none of it. “Shiro,” he steps closer, the hand that was grabbing his arm slowly dropping to grab his hand instead.

“Of course, there was no one. I was…working, also…,” he trails off.

“Shiro,” Keith says again, his other hand raising to cup his chin. “Please,” his voice is almost unbearable, “Talk to me. I need to know what you’re thinking.”

Shiro’s lips are pressed into a thin line. He shakes his head first, inhales, exhales, closes his eyes. “It’s okay. We have time. Talk to me.”

“Alright.” His voice is steady, determined – his eyes have the stern gaze of Admiral Shirogane – not Shiro, his friend. “Did you break up with them to go with me?”

Keith drops his hand like a hot piece of coal. The question is unexpected, but then again, Shiro isn’t an idiot. He knows how to connect the dots despite the little information that is given to him. And he’s right. He hasn’t told anyone – not the Paladins, not the few friends he made in his time at the Garrison. He can’t easily talk about it to Shiro either, _especially_ not to Shiro.

“What if…,” he crosses his arms and starts walking again. “What if I did?” He walks past him or tries to. It’s Shiro grabbing his hand this time.

“What?” he asks, gaze boring into Keith’s eyes deeply. “You broke up with someone to be here with me? Keith?”

“I did. Can we go to the meeting now? I’m sure they are all waiting for us.”

“We can’t,” he says determined, “This time, we can’t _not_ talk about this, Keith.”

The Black Paladin bites his lips. “Right.” He takes a seat on a small greenish sandstone at the side of the trail. He thinks Shiro will regret cornering him because if they can’t talk openly about them, he doesn’t know what good will this do.

“I will tell you, but we both gotta play with our cards open.”

Shiro takes a seat on a coarse rock opposite him. “That’s okay, I can be hon-“

“For starters, after our fight at the cloning facility – I know you remember it – you had time to yourself, to understand what happened, you were comfortable in your body soon after. But you never talked to me about it. How come?” Keith raises his voice and eyebrow at the end of the sentence. Shiro’s alarmed expression shouldn’t bring him that much satisfaction – but it’s been a long build-up. Shiro opens his mouth, then closes it. “I-“

“Another one,” he pushes up from where he’s sitting and moving towards him. “So, we’ve been friends for a long time, right? And we saved the world – kind of – together, _successfully_ even. I killed …” he trails off. It’s hard, to talk about her so soon after, but Keith spits the name out: “… Haggar, then we go back to Earth. You still didn’t say anything about what happened in the cloning facility. We work alongside three months, you close off, more and more. What was I supposed to think about that?”

“Keith, I-“

“I’m not sure how I could have been clearer, to you,” he says and the angry fire that rages in his ribcage morphs into cold, sad feelings, “and you never say anything. That hurts, but I was okay with being your friend. Until it was so hard, I could barely look at you, so I left.”

“You quit the Garrison because of...” Shiro’s eyes are wide opened.

“Yes.”

Keith leans against the rock again. They sit in silence, Keith is unsure if he wants to cry, if he should cry or if he’s even able to cry. Maybe he’s over it, maybe all the angry feelings are an indication of how he finally got over it all. But every certainness crumbles under Shiro’s expression, head dropped, eyes staring at his feet.

It takes a long time until he says something.

“It was Griffin, right?”

There’s no point in lying. Keith nods.

“I’m sorry,” his smile is weak. Keith can see the imaginable wall build-up before his eyes. “I’m sorry, Keith. I didn’t want to be the reason the two of you break up.”

His words are enough to bring his blood back boiling and Keith knows, he has all reason to get angry, but when he looks at Shiro’s eyes, heartbroken over the fact that Keith broke up with his boyfriend to follow him into space, he remembers how similar they are in showing their priorities with action – and it’s clear to Keith that it always has been Shiro who was most important to him.

“You’re not- “, but he stops.

Keith never had a problem laying down how much Shiro means to him…but this is more complicated.

His throat tightens, and his voice is thin when he finally speaks. “I wanted to forget you,” he says, then quieter, “I was thinking it could work with him.”

Now he’s waiting for Shiro to say something – it’s all he has, telling him about what was going on, what he didn’t know about. It’s not in his hands anymore, the ball is in Shiro’s court. Either he feels something, or he doesn’t.

“Keith, I can’t.” Shiro’s voice is heartbroken. _I should be the heartbroken one,_ Keith thinks.

“I know it’s not—” Shiro starts, but Keith interrupts him.

“Stop,” Keith stands. His life had once been in the state that he thought it’s not worth a lot when Shiro’s not with him. Or worth anything, even with him. He’s not going back to that.

“Stop,” he says again and there’s a familiar buzzing sound, a light screeching in his right ear. The surroundings are flickering around them, there are cracks everywhere and bright light blazing through them, shimmering and blending. Keith’s stomach turns.

He realizes what’s happening; it can’t happen again, it just—

“NO,” he shouts, because he knows, he can’t go through that talk a second time. The trail to their feet turns and twists until it’s normal again – Shiro next to him is talking.

“…that’s okay, I can be honest.”

Keith briefly wonders if he’s a big joke to the universe for it to make him notice the time jumps. They’re back to the beginning of the talk again, but now he’s smarter – he already knows, Shiro doesn’t – what doesn’t he remember again? Shiro knows he was in a relationship, or at least he guessed right. This time, Keith didn’t interrupt him, didn’t ask him anything—

“I can be honest,” Shiro says again, “I didn’t expect that to happen.”

With ‘that’ he means the night they spend together. _Their_ night, with all the explosive feelings bubbling to the surface, with tentative steps running towards each other, firing forwards and crossing a line three times before they could even think about what’s happening. It feels like a distant memory already, like something that wasn’t supposed to happen and yet felt good, but out of place for them both, if they were honest. It wasn’t the right time.

Keith feels tired thinking about the right moment, he’s tired and it’s not even noon – whenever that’s supposed to be, with three suns lining up high at the sky.

“Me neither, Shiro,” he says defeated. He doesn’t tell him about the time jump or that if the time jump reached back to the night they slept together, he’d do it again, maybe without crying at the end of it.

“I know it was a mistake for you - I think it’s not too late to get back together with…whoever you broke up with.”

Keith brings his hands to his face. “God, Shiro, you’re so bad at this. I can’t believe it.”

Shiro looks a bit offended, maybe rightfully so. But there can’t be a reality where he doesn’t realize it, too.

“I don’t _want_ to get back together with him. I’m not the kind of asshole that thinks there would be a chance with him after what happened. Fucking god, Shiro.”

“But you cried-“

“Yeah,” Keith gets up because it’s impossible to sit still during this conversation, “I cried because I was confused, okay? I was wondering why I was with my ex in the first place when I always thought that you’re just as interested in me as I was in you. I was wondering why we wasted the time we wasted. Or why I hurt _him_.” There are a milLion reasons why he cried, he thinks, and not many worth explaining, many not even _he_ understands.

“Keith,” Shiro stands up, too, “I’ve been thinking a lot about …well, us, from when we started going on this mission.”

“Yeah?” Keith asks him softly, takes a step towards him. But Shiro isn’t looking at him.

“I don’t think it’s me you like.” The statement pushes the air out of Keith’s lungs. “What? I’m telling you, my ex and I, we are over. I’m not hung up on h-“

“I think you didn’t fall in love with me,” Shiro interrupts him and fumbles with the seam of his uniform, “I think you fell in love with the …clone.”

Keith’s mouth falls open and for a few seconds, he says nothing, then-

“That’s ridiculous.” It sounds a lot like he’s in denial.

“Is it?” Shiro raises an eyebrow.

“It is,” Keith reassures him. He searches his face, wants Shiro to look at him, look at his eyes and just believe him, but Shiro is looking down. Keith can’t read his face – it’s killing him to not know what he feels-

“Then let me ask you,” Shiro says, and it’s the first time Keith hears him speak like this, “Who did you confess your love to?”

His mouth falls open and he stares. Shiro is looking at his shoes. Keith feels the world turning and the universe bending. A strong wind breezes over them, takes Shiro’s short fringe and twirls it in the air. Keith only feels the loud steady hum of the wind in his ears, then the hot glaring sun on his face.

The clone, he thinks. I confessed my love to _Shiro_ , not to _him_.

Keith doesn’t answer and can’t bear to look at Shiro’s disappointed face.

“That’s what I thought.” He starts walking. Keith missed his chance again.

“Let’s go,” Shiro calls out when he’s a few meters ahead, voice neutral – not cold, even friendly. It’s him being _professional_. “We’re late for the meeting.”

Keith doesn’t know how they can go back and forth and meet in the middle and then part again. For the first half hour of the meeting, he can’t bring himself to listen and replays their talk in his head. He wonders where they missed each other’s mark to get it right and what made them both hurt, why everything had always worked out during their time as Team Voltron, and why now it feels like there is misunderstanding after misunderstanding.

 _I don’t love the clone_ , Keith thinks defiantly. And then again, where’s the difference in his feelings? They are both Shiro, and he fell for him a long time ago.

It’s hard to concentrate but when he does, greetings and introductions already finished, and they can discuss more urgent matters and coalition work. The first topic is a straight hit in the face: They are told that the planet’s harmony is threatened by a possible civil war, which was already predicted to be happening a few years in the future but the estimated time had been miscalculated. Before, the time jumps hadn’t interfered with socio-political developments, but the more they keep happening, the worse it gets, a butterfly effect. The people at the meeting deliver a complicated explanation, so hard to follow that Keith wishes Pidge were with them to keep up with it.

“So, you are telling us…” It takes time for Shiro, too, to process whatever they tell them.

“That local groups are already mobilizing and hoarding weaponry, yes.”

The central issue is, that the time jumps are getting worse and other than expected, they started affecting the past and future of Timptaimi. If they can’t figure out a method of decreasing the impact or the time jumps itself, a collapse of the Timptaimi and the planets nearby might become a thing.

“We have to act fast, Paladins. Against all previous assumptions, we might need your help,” Traivra tells them from the other end of the table, “we will undoubtedly compensate all your efforts with the issue at hand.”

“We are happy to help,” Shiro instantly says but throws an unsure gaze at Keith, “but we’re not sure how. I don’t even notice the time jumps…”

“But he does,” she says and stands up, walks towards Keith, “the Black Paladin.” Her three heads muster him curiously. “We think he’s sensible enough to detect the source of the time-related quintessence on our planet and repair where the time continuum is broken.”

Keith looks as unsure as Shiro does.

“I will do what I can…although I never did something similar before.”

There’s no need in running into a wall head-on. “How will we get near the source?”

“We are reading submissions about now, we currently have located an area where the source could be within 25 square meters. After that, our readings are too off, so we cannot get closer.”

“Maybe someone should accompany us.” Shiro looks at them sternly. Keith thinks the same – they can’t just run headfirst into a disaster without someone who knows one thing or two about this planet and time jumps.

“Fine,” Traivra’s voice is strict, too. Maybe she hoped for them to be more on the enthusiastic side. “We will prepare your escort as fast as possible, but we also need to send you off soon. We have no certain outlook on what will happen if the time jumps keep happening at the rapid speed they are currently at, especially if the rebel groups are mobilizing.”

Keith and Shiro both nod. “We’ll be ready this evening,” Shiro tells her and stands up, together they leave the room and go back to their ship.

“What will you do?” Matt asks after he rejoined them on their way back to the ship.

“We don’t know,” Shiro tells him and walks quicker.

“What? And they still want you to help? You didn’t look half as unsure in the meeting room as right now!” Matt has trouble keeping up with them and falls into a small jog next to Shiro.

“Fake it until you make it, I guess.”

Shiro doesn’t want to address the topic, but Matt is right. “I don’t know how I can stop the time jumps from happening, Shiro,” Keith confesses to him the moment they are inside the ship.

“I know.” Shiro grabs one of the bags and starts filling it with supplies and utensils, “I’ve no idea. I’m not even sure _they_ know.” He looks back at Keith for a minute, shrugs. “I don’t think there are many people who can detect quintessence as you can, you know.”

“Yeah.” Keith takes a bag and starts filling it with some food and weapons, too. “Then I guess we finally have to figure out how I do it. But we should talk to someone who knows about it more than us.”

*

They call Coran first, but he’s unavailable. They try Allura, who picks up instantly.

“We don’t have a lot time, Princess,” Keith cuts through, “Are you familiar with rips in time? Or time rips? Time jumps in general?”

“Uh, yeah, I would think so,” Allura says, blindsided, “Why?”

“We’re on Timptaimi and we need to seal a leak but we don’t know how. They think they can use my sensitivity towards quintessence to locate the leak first, but we don’t know if we can seal it afterward,” Keith urges.

Allura doesn’t speak for a while – she’s thinking.

“It would be easier if I’d be there. I’m sure I could act as a catalyzer …”

“We don’t have the time, Princess,” Shiro interrupts her, “I’m sorry, Allura. Do you have any idea…?”

Allura cuts in. “It’s basically impossible without an Altean alchemist – or someone similar.” She looks to the side and furrows her brows. “On the other hand, Keith’s sensitivity…we haven’t examined anything he can do with it – maybe there is a way to bundle up the quintessence of the time continuum leak. I mean…It could work, possibly.”

“Alright,” Keith looks to Shiro, “Sounds good. What do you do?”

“I will send you a detailed description of energy transmittance in a few doboshes. I’m not sure if you can follow them through, but you can practice with the energy around you. Keith,” she addresses him directly, voice deep, “Please don’t be reckless.”

“Understood, Princess,” Keith says softly. They turn off the datapad and exchange a gaze. Keith stretches and reaches for his bag, face hesitantly when he states. “I think this will likely be a mission without a good result.”

They both pack in a hurry, eat something and go back to the official buildings. They take half of the time arguing with Matt and why he should stay with their space ships instead of coming along. “It’s no good if all three of us get in danger,” Shiro tells him and that finally puts him off the topic. “Alright, I’m going to watch them instead.” He jerks his head towards the ships.

There are already a few people gathered when they arrive.

“Thanks for your assistance.” It’s another person from Timptaimi, another one who has only one head. “I’m Gornkros. I and my four companions will support you.”

Shiro shakes their hands while Keith eyes them from a spot behind him.

“So, where do we start?” Shiro asks them and scratches the back of his head. Gornkros nods and hands him a datapad. “We have a few suspicions where the leak might be. There have been readings in the northern part of one of the smaller cities east from here. A few locals reported to have time jumps several times a minute.”

Keith raises an eyebrow. That must be hard, even when everyone around them relives time the same way, similar to a day that’s never over.

“All right. Let’s head there first.”

They travel by an underground pipe system and it’s by far the weirdest public transportation Keith has ever experienced until now. One by one they board a small capsule and reach their destination within a few minutes. It’s quick but leaves both him and Shiro with a weird feeling as soon as they climb out of the capsule.

“Must be because humans have a stomach,” murmurs Grilirnrad while looking at Shiro’s paling face.

They continue their way to the city on foot. The place of the presumed time leak is nearby the station, but still a twenty minutes’ walk from there.

Keith and Shiro walk in front of their small squad – they don’t know why, but the small cat-like creature they first saw when they met Traivra accompanies them – maybe it’s out of its own will. The small city is almost empty – many small blockhouses who disappear under green liana – a few people here and there. Keith feels like they are being watched, but he doesn’t say anything. Shiro doesn’t talk and doesn’t look at him either.

They have a minute to breathe – Keith reads the instructions Allura sent them, but his mind pulls away from the written words, scrawly handwriting, an indicator that the written English alphabet is something she only learned recently, back to what Shiro said, thinks about how Shiro had acknowledged his feelings, but outright denied they were for him.

They still have around ten minutes, Keith thinks, and they don’t know what will happen when they reach the time continuum leak.

“Hey,” he says, voice low, stumbling closer.

“Hey,” Shiro says, less agitated than when they were speaking earlier. His voice and gaze are soft, the corner of his eyes wrinkling under his smile, but he’s distracted, lost in his thoughts, too. Keith takes a deep breath, tries to blend out the people walking behind them or that he desperately needs to go through Allura’s mail again.

“The one time you were taking me out to race,” Keith starts out of the blue, voice rough and soft at the edges, “I still remember. I was so excited to have someone to do stuff with.”

“Keith, wh-“

“I thought you were the coolest person on Earth,” Keith continues, and he feels his throat tighten and sentimentality crushing the heart in his chest, “that you were so positive like you never had anything you fear. You jumped off the cliff and I…I was taken away.”

They pass a few booths. One has some long rotten red fruit lying on it, others have statues of the three-headed Traivra on it. One of it lies smashed on the ground.

“I was pretty reckless,” Shiro states, not without a small smile. “I can’t believe you thought I was cool,” he snorts, too.

“Don’t ruin this,” Keith grins. Shiro gestures for him to continue. They cross a small bridge – the water looks calm, too calm as if it’s not moving at all.

“This was years before I met your clone.” Keith looks at the water, then to Shiro, “and I’ve already fallen for you.”

Since they have been on Timptaimi, there was something he realized – there could be as many time jumps as he wanted, but the universe between them, around them, it was always moving – if Keith wanted to undo this mess of their relationship, he’d probably had to turn the wheel of time back to when he first met Shiro, if he’s being honest. There’s no reality where Keith could have resisted falling for him.

Shiro turns to him, eyes wide, but he’s still left with uncertainty in his eyes.

“Keith, you don’t need t-“

But Keith won’t have it. He hopes that the time stays stable as it has for the last twenty minutes (which is surprising, because Traivra just told them, that the time jumps are happening any other minute before). But so far they haven’t experienced even one-

“I need to, Shiro,” Keith frowns, “If not now, when will we ever get things right between us?”

He hesitates for a second, but the more he sees Shiro hesitate, the more he’s certain about them.

“It’s okay for things to change between us,” Keith tells him, and his voice is cracking. He’s trying to prevent his cheeks from overheating, but something is prickling in his eyes, too. In the same moment, the cat-like creature that usually hung around Traivra jumps on Shiro’s back, and Kosmo appears next to him, too. Keith is so focused, he doesn’t notice time and space bulging around them. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters, he needs to tell him, again, aga-

“I love you,” Keith shouts but doesn’t know why he’s shouting, gaze flickering to Kosmo. Shiro is holding the cat up, although she’s buckling. The animals are both twitchy. He realizes that there’s a familiar loud humming noise in his ears.

“Shiro,” he shouts again, eyes looking back frantic. A bright yellow light arising and blinding everyone between of them, “please, Shiro, believe me when I say I love y-“

“We found it,” shouts someone from behind over, “You brought us to the leak!” Keith turns back to them, then to Shiro, who’s not moving.

“Shit,” he walks towards him, but the steps towards him are harder and harder.

“Watch out, Black Paladin,” someone else shouts, “it might be under us.”

Shiro moves again. “Keith, me, I…

The humming sound pitches high, Shiro’s figure is walking backward, making the same surprised faces as before – it’s like he’s stuck in a loop. “Keith,” he says again, me, too, I..”

The white cat on his shoulders is moving, the surface bubbling.

“Watch out, Paladins,” someone screams against the humming noise, a repeat of before, the time is turning back again for their escort. Now, forwards, Shiro nods, squinting his eyes against the sandstorm and bright light. Huge leaps of energy are pulsing outside, preventing them in getting towards the slit.

“Keith, be careful!” Shiro shouts against the stream. He’s holding his arm up against the dazzling light.

Kosmo is running towards their escorts – bringing them away, one after the other. “What are you doing?!“ Keith screams to his wolf, against the loud noise. There’s a loud crack coming from above, when he looks at the sky it’s bright yellow light on dark gray-

It’s getting worse – the time energy is hitting all over the place, it’s crackling beneath them, white lightning in the sky – they won’t make it through if Keith’s not doing anything. Shiro has frozen in his position again –

Another crack, now on the ground. Keith thinks of Allura’s note, to concentrate on the energy he is feeling around him but he’s distracted by his previous failed attempt after which he just gave up completely until now because he thought they would still have time, he _should_ have tried and practiced it before they came here, now it’s too late, and he can’t make out the quintessence of the time springing around, he feels nothing at all.

The slit beneath them parts the planet’s crust, and it’s glowing bright yellow, madly and erratic. It’s like a movie in slow motion – Kosmo appearing and disappearing with the escorts, Shiro screaming and holding the cat, trying to get towards him, the loud noise, the buzzing that slowly, heatedly becomes screeching, it’s then, when the lights go out completely.

It takes long for Keith to open the eyes he just closed painfully tight. When he does, they are _all_ gone – even the white, warm and electrified light. It’s only him now,and a cold purple glow against the slick, shiny surface beneath his feet. It’s familiar.

“No,” Keith murmurs. It’s something he first feels in his heart before it reaches his mind – it’s a scene he never wanted to revisit.

It’s far enough that he’s dreaming about it, even nowadays. Dreams where he doesn’t know if they are real, or if he’s been long dead.

There he stands, the clone body with Shiro’s mind and soul, at least for Keith, but his eyes are cold - dipped in pink light, hand half raised. “Please,” Keith begs, but it’s not his own voice, that he listens to.

It’s too much – he wants to drive out of the memory. He closes his eyes, hoping for a quick exit. Then he feels it arrive – it’s real. It’s _him_.

It’s muscle memory, the fight. The harsh metal clanking against the buzzing sound of Shiro’s arm, a memory or future vision that haunted him for years now.

“Shiro-“ he begs.

He won’t react to Keith’s begging. Maybe it’s not even him; there are things missing on his face, after all, the face Keith has watched change since he’s been young, but it’s still him, no matter how cruel….

 _He would never hurt me_ , Keith thinks when he springs out of the way. If it wasn’t Shiro, he could just kill him. He could let go of him unlike he would ever let go of Shiro.

They are not his own legs, but he’s looking down on them and they are running. He’s moving away from what’s threatening him. It’s different, from what he knows, what he dreams about late at night. He’s running but he doesn’t feel him following him, unless he’s suddenly just _there,_ big and threatening. “I’m not,” he tells him and Keith knows the memory best – the punch that sends his jaw upwards and curses an ugly crack out of his bones.

His sword is his last resort in this fight. It sends his blood boiling to use it, to fight against who he loves. It’s not Shiro, but he’s not evil either. The facility is slowly coming undone – he briefly thinks of all the bodies, all the clones who will die when it all crashes, but they never took a breath, not like him, they never breathed the same air as him, it’s not as if he doesn’t care about them, but he does care about _him_ , too.

“Please,” he begs, when they are holding their swords against each other, a moment to breath. He already feels the ground rumble, it’s too real. Maybe it’s real after all, and the time jumps pitchforked him right back to this moment. “ _Please_. I have memories with you, too,” he argues with despair in his voice. He doesn’t listen – Keith has to flee again before the clone will shoot laser beams.

His feet push hard against the already moving platform to get away, but he’s not fast enough.

He can’t prevent other memories clouding his mind, memories of Shiro and his fight, about the feeling that it’s not meant for him to take the Black Lion from him, then a short memory of Shiro (the clone) meeting his mom for the first time.

He wants to change the outcome of this fight, desperately so. “You remember, don’t you?” Keith shouts and jumps one level down, “The Shiro now remembers it all, doesn’t he?”

He’s running, but Shiro is out of sight – did he leave, suddenly?

Keith takes a deep breath, steadying himself at a metal bar. The worst memory hasn’t even arrived yet, but it keeps his heart pumping, beating hard against his rib cage.

Shiro right over him, deaf for every plea, Keith not knowing if he’ll survive or not, the confession, this time he won’t hurt him….

He hasn’t moved, but there they are - the purple light flashes in front of his face, the glowing arm falls. A second too late, and it would be _him_ dying, but Keith already pushed his bayard through the clone without knowing.

The air reeks of blood, but he sees the red slowly fading out of the clone’s eyes. “Keith,” Shiro whimpers, trembling on the blade of Keith’s bayard, slowly sliding to the ground.

It’s not the same, this time.

Keith feels like dying again, but this time, it’s worse.

“No,” he whimpers and falls to the ground. His hands dig into the hard metal. The facility around them starts crumbling. Bright white streaks of light push through, light around them. “No”.

A bright white ball of fur appears in front of Keith – the clone is gone.

“It’s alright,” a voice comes out of nowhere, and the buzzing sound slowly morphs into a soft purr, “It’s alright.”

He sees a white tuft of glowing hair before he passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I'm CruelisnotMason | Cruelisblue and I do fics and fanart. You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/CruelisB) & [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cruelisblue) and talk to me about Sheith in space!


	7. Don't Punish Me For What I Feel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of thought this took really long to write? But it has only been a month? Why can't I write my own school work that quick???
> 
> Thanks for all the kind comments on the last chapter! Since the start of this fic and until now the support has grown & it reassures me a lot with my writing skills. Every time I read your comments it makes me happy, in all sincerity, and it motivates me to finish this baby!
> 
> If you like the new chapter, consider giving me a comment! I love you all<3
> 
> ____________________  
> Ps: If we reach 69 comments next chap will be full of smut ;D so go tell your friends about this fic
> 
> ____________________  
> Edit: If there's anything you want to read in the final chapter of Space Explorers, please write it in a comment!

Chapter VI - Don't Punish Me For What I Feel

* * *

* * *

It’s morning. The small ship’s inner system for natural light slowly dips Shiro’s room into the golden rays of an artificial early sun. For now, it’s only him that stirred awake this early. He’s barely enough awake to get up, but he still does, drops to the ground to start his daily set of push-ups.

Wake up. Eat. Train. Sleep. Repeat.

It’s hard to maintain his form and not sleep his days away – the first few days he rests at Keith’s bed until Matt tells him that Keith won’t get better from him sitting in a shitty chair all day long and falling asleep in an uncomfortable position in the evening. Shiro doesn’t retort since he knows, Matt’s right.

He’s still there every night and sits upright in the chair that he pushed next to Keith’s bed at some point. Day in and day out, it’s a process of waiting for Keith to stir or to move so he knows he’s still alive and his condition might be not so bad after all when in reality, nobody’s sure about that. On the outside, his petite frame looks normal, even though pale – the physician that came all the way up to their ship can’t find what is wrong with Keith, really, and half the time she is with him, she eyes the white cat. Sometimes, it speeds into the room and jumps up from one surface to a higher surface, so it can sit on the highest cupboard. Shiro is used to the sight by now and just ignores the animal.

“We had cases like this before,” the physician tells him, dragging her eyes from the animal to Keith. “Usually it just goes away after a while. Must be a shock of the sheer energy that hit him. Can you tell me again what happened?”

Shiro doesn’t want to, but he tells every little detail he remembers until the moment Keith passed out.

“It must be because he could actually feel the quintessence of time energy. You, for example, don’t. He might have had a push back through time.” She eyes Keith warily, measures a spot under his chin that no human doctor would care to measure.

“Maybe he’s living through a time jump and won’t wake up because of it.” She looks back to Shiro whose eyes narrow. “He’s half-human, so it also could be because humans and their tiny little stomachs just can’t – uh - stomach time energy. He might be sensitive to it.”

Shiro listens, nods. He understands but doesn’t. It takes a lot of strength to accept that they can’t help him, and not only because Keith isn’t from their planet.

“There’s nothing you can do? Some medicine?” Shiro still tries.

The physician nods and gives him several small ampullae. They contain a dark violet liquid that drizzles slowly from one side to the other.

“This should have some kind of opposite effect to the time jump energy he consumed,” she explains, “it’s safe for him to take it, we think. The effects aren’t strong, there are no side-effects either. It can be consumed by stomachs, too.”

Shiro nods again and briefly wonders what’s up with Timptaimi’s inhabitants and their obsession over human stomachs. He takes the ampullae from her. “Is there anything _I_ can do for him?”

She presses her lips together, cocks her head. “I think staying with him might be good. For a reasonable time.” She looks at him like a mother scolding a child. It’s obvious to anyone that Shiro looks like shit, no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

“Your prosthesis,” she nods to the Altean arm that lies on the counter in the control room, “it’s still not working?”

“No,” Shiro sighs. He finally got used to having it and now it’s not working anymore.

The doctor cocks her head and licks her upper lip in thought.

“Well, Admiral, I have to head back. My help is also needed on my planet.” She suddenly looks very tired. “Will you keep that Tarmurikel?”

Shiro glances to the white cat, which obviously isn’t called ‘cat’ on Timptaimi. Maybe it’s worth an explanation to the doctor why it’s here.

“She won’t leave,” he says, suddenly feeling guilty for bringing the animal with him, “I didn’t want to steal her away,” he adds, but the doctor only shakes her head. “It’s not a problem. I think it will be helpful for you when it stays here.”

Shiro wants to ask why, but the civil war on Timptaimi is up and underway. They can’t help them with the war, so he doesn’t want to prevent the doctor from doing her work back down on the planet, either.

The moment she exits the ship to get to her own small traveling capsule and back to the planet below them, Shiro goes back to Keith’s room. The cat (or _Tarmurikel_ ) is sitting comfortably on a handle that’s used to hang up containers. From there she’s watching Shiro with intent. Shiro squints back. “You’re not able to talk, are you?” he asks it. The cat only stares back.

Shiro makes himself comfortable in the chair, lets his hand rest on Keith’s. His hair is spread all over the cushion, eyes closed, mouth in a relaxed downwards curve. He’s never moving, not even shifting. Only his steady breath indicates that he’s still among the living.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do if you stay like that.” Shiro’s confession falls on deaf ears. It took at least a week for him to admit the dreading feeling of being hopeless. It took a week to realize this might be the end of it.

Keith is like the stars now. There, but unreachable.

It’s easing the burden and the repressed emotion in Shiro a little bit, but not enough. He’s taking therapy, too, during this time. But as much as he knows it helps and has a use for him, he feels like it’s a waste of time. Another hour when he can’t stay beside Keith and watch him for any signs of recovery.

Matt sticks his head through the door after Shiro went back to Keith’s room.

“Shiro?”

“Come in,” he prompts and doesn’t let go of Keith’s hand. Matt should be used to the sight by now - he appears in the room, slowly waves at the cat. The cat stares back, unmoving. Kosmo lifts his head for a moment but puts it down again.

It’s an old situation by now – they are caught in this position, above Timptaimi, right over its atmosphere, unable to move back or forth, unable to go outside or leave the ship. “Still nothing, huh,” Matt says and puts his hands on his hips. “What’s up?” Shiro asks him in the most neutral tone he can manage. Matt throws him a pitying gaze.

“Uhm, Krolia. She called again. I told her you would call back in a few minutes.”

“I will.” He looks at Keith again, presses his hand and waits for a press back.

Nothing.

Talking to Krolia calms him in a way that he never expected – she’s worried but she doesn’t show it, doesn’t let on how angry she is that nobody allowed her to enter the atmosphere during the ongoing civil war down below. The Garrison’s ship is tolerated because they know of Keith’s state. They know that space travel at the moment could be unsafe for him.

“Why can’t they just _stop_ the damn war?”

Krolia’s growl is deep and intimidating, but Shiro got used to it. She’s standing in front of the screen, face so close that Shiro can see her dark blue eyelashes clearly. Kolivan is hovering safely in the back. It’s as if he thinks that he’s not supposed to be on screen but still wants to listen.

“I would love to know that, too. But there’s nothing we can do about it. They fear that foreign ships will drop weapons or intel. I wish you were able to come.”

Shiro speaks the truth. He thinks it’s a bit shady of him to be relieved that Matt’s ship got wrecked in the first attack of the troops, while Matt was on his way to save them with the Garrison ship. Matt’s only option was to stay with him, which means Shiro isn’t alone. He doesn’t know if Matt’s ship (in case it hadn’t gotten destroyed) would have been allowed near the atmosphere, too.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Shiro states. “It’s _their_ war – we don’t know anything about it, or even if helping either side is a good idea. I contacted the neighboring planets and now we’re hoping that someone will talk sense into them. They might know more than us on it.”

“It’s right,” Krolia says after a minute, “Earth shouldn’t interfere.”

They don’t talk much about Keith, even though he’s the reason Krolia called in the first place. But she knows if there’d be anything new, he’d tell her right away. Kolivan moves into view at the end of the video and gazes at the screen.

“Be good to him.” It’s all he says. Shiro nods and ends the call.

He goes back to Keith’s room to find Matt is sitting in his chair, watching him in his stead. He’s on his datapad and types away opens a voice message of Sam Holt that starts out with “Son-” and stops it as soon as Shiro appears.

“Are they giving you a hard time?” He smiles a bit and Matt returns it. He rolls his eyes and lets out a huff. “You wouldn’t believe how mad mom is. Dad, too. Even Pidge! They all sent me voice-messages shout-asking me how I could abandon our ship instead of the Garrison’s to come and get you both.”

“Well,” Shiro says and stretches, “I, for now, am glad I don’t have to deal with an angry Garrison officer over a destroyed ship.” He sits down on the edge of the bed, taking Keith’s hand in his, again. “I don’t think it would be as easy to get off the case since I don’t have any relatives there to help me out,” he says and raises a playful eyebrow at Matt.

“Don’t act like Iverson wouldn’t try to save you from the situation,” Matt grins, “believe me, if anything, being related to the Holts makes the situation somehow worse for me. They are _so_ angry. The ship cost them thousands.”

The talk a few seconds about Pidge’s ideas to retrieve the ship (“That’s definitely out of question”) and Sam’s concern about Matt getting home.

“As long as your stranded it’s fine for you to stay with us,” Shiro tells him, even though Matt already knows.

“Thanks, buddy,” Matt tells him. “Now go to your therapy session. I’ll watch Keith.”

It’s hard to get away, out of the room. It’s been weeks now, and there are stagnating. Shiro reminds himself to give Keith the medicine as soon as the session is over and walks towards his room to set up his datapad for the video call.

Now that he’s calling his therapist, he needs to ready himself into another mindset – at least he thinks. _Worry less_ , he reminds himself, think less about Keith or how he barely survived this time.

He feels like drowning in regrets. Every thought tries to drag him below the surface and cut his air off. _Stop,_ he tells himself _, stop thinking. You need to stop._

A small _ping_ saves him from getting lost in thoughts.

“Shiro,” his therapist addresses him and smiles as soon as she’s visible on the screen.

“Hey,” he says reluctantly and takes a second or two before he smiles back.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind today?” Straight to the point.

Shiro tells her – first his routine, how he woke up today and went to see Keith, then Krolia’s call. His plans about the rest of the day are quickly summarized. There’s nothing much to do. 

He knows it doesn’t matter to a therapist, but he thinks about how boring it must sound to her to listen to him opening with the same boring routine every time. Shiro tells her his thoughts about that, too but she simply shakes her head. “Anything up in space a few lightyears away could sound like fun – even toothbrushing.”

It makes Shiro laugh and forget for a second that there are other matters on his mind. She asks him about cooking – Shiro feels guilty when he admits that he hasn’t done it in a while and ate prepackaged food or whatever Matt cooked for them instead. She tells him that it’s good he’s eating and that Matt seems like a good friend. “I think he’s just clever at avoiding eating the food I make.” His therapist laughs. Shiro wonders if it gets him a good patient medal to make her laugh so often.

“Now, you mentioned the whole clone situation the last time,” she starts and Shiro tenses. He can’t possibly dodge the big topics, the uncomfortable ones all the time. He still tries to. “Yeah. I’d rather not talk about it this time.”

She nods. “It is a hard topic.” She looks thoughtful. “Especially because it’s an unrelatable topic to anyone else.”

It _is_ unrelatable. Impossible to understand, even for him, even now. He doesn’t want to talk about it, because there’s a lot of guilt in him – the guilt of dying and leaving the others alone with his clone, the guilt of taking the clone's body although he loved Shiro’s life. The guilt of hating him, although it’s basically another version of him.

What makes him angry the most is his lacking ability to express that they aren’t the same person, but still are. That sometimes, he’s jealous of him, although he knows that Keith thought of _Shiro_ , when he talked to him, thought of _Shiro_ when he smiled at him, thought of _Shiro_ when he told him he loved him.

He’d rather not talk about it.

Shiro ends up talking about the clone thing in the end and even though he knows that his therapist wouldn’t try to trick him into talking, he wonders if she thinks she needs to make him talk about that topic.

It’s practicing the same speech, again and again, explaining the frame of the whole situation, ‘disappearing’ then coming back. Nothing new. Her questions go nowhere, too, and Shiro knows it’s his fault. He’s sealing it, bottling it up. There may be never a time when he’s ready.

They’ve been sitting in silence for a while; she doesn’t push or demand the time to be used, just smiles at him and waits. Shiro knows he can wait until the time is over and it would be fine. It feels like a waste, though.

He’s staring down at his hands, searching for something to say.

“How’s Keith?”

The question twists and turns Shiro’s stomach – he’s unable to say anything. His lip is quivering; it’s guilt that washes over him. He thinks it must be because he hadn’t had intensive feelings for a while now. They usually hover below and never surface.

He doesn’t want to think about the possibility of Keith dying. He feels like something in him dies too, thinks about the year that he disappeared and wonders how Keith felt. Did he feel like dying, too? Shiro knows what it feels like, and this feeling seems worse.

The difference between them is, that Keith was somehow sure that he’s still out there; whereas Shiro is losing all his hope.

 _How did you do it_ , he wants to ask Keith, because _back then_ he was just like him, lonely and sometimes lost. He knows what he meant to Keith back then. He still remembers the day Keith found him and how when he woke up and looked up into his friend’s worried, scrunchy face looking down at him restless, unsure if he’s allowed to hug.

“Shiro!”

The shout comes from the control room, and Shiro scrambles up quickly. He will have to explain this to his therapist another time-

“What is it?”

“We’re being targeted!” Matt shouts and pushes some buttons, “They are targeting us! Why?!”

It’s not a matter of why, when missiles are being shot, rather a question of _how the fuck do we get out of there._

“Get us into starting mode. We have to get out,” Shiro says in his calmest voice. This particular Garrison ship is a peaceful one – likely unable to uphold a longer fight.

They are under heavy fire from below – Matt navigates them away from the planet’s atmosphere back into space, but the first missile hits bullseye.

“Shit,” Matt curses, “It’s as if I’m just predestined to wreck ships at this point.”

“Give over the controls,” Shiro orders and slips into his seat. “Look after Keith, Matt. We can’t lose him. Go!”

Matt hurries away when Shiro brings the ship into a sharp right curve. The cupboards in the kitchen rattle.

“Just a bit,” Shiro mutters as he grips the controls tightly.

They are out of direct fire in split seconds, but Shiro needs to fly the ship towards another planet’s atmosphere so they can stand still. At some point he enables autopilot, so he can look after Matt and Keith.

Matt stands beside the bed and looks down on Keith, who is still not moving. Shiro is still wary, waiting for another attack, but it seems as if they are not tailing them.

The expression on Matt’s face is unreadable when he speaks.

“Shiro,” he says, “we have to get the cat away.”

Shiro looks down on Keith, too. He looks like before, unrattled by the attacks. The cat is nowhere to be seen, but when Shiro looks up high, he sees it hiding between the cupboard.

“What, why?” he asks.

“It’s always on Keith’s chest whenever I come in,” Matt explains, “I fear it’s giving him trouble with breathing.”

Shiro looks at the cat. The cat looks back. Kosmo watches them both.

“I think it’s alright,” he says with a look at Kosmo. Kosmo accepts the cat like he accepts the chair or the bed in Keith’s room – as if it belongs there. He has never once attacked it or expressed disdain like he usually would with dangerous things.

It’s not the nicest thing to think, but Shiro trusts the space wolf’s gut more than he trusts Matt’s.

“If you say so,” Matt says, folding his arms, still looking at the cat.

Shiro extends his fingers towards the space cat. When she slowly moves out of her hiding spot, he pats her head. “Don’t make things hard for him, alright?”

The space cat purrs. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he tells her.

As soon as they make sure that Keith is in the same state as before the attack, both Matt and Shiro need to go outside the ship and check for any damages. It seems safe enough, with no other ships in sight. They have been hit multiple times, but not any collateral damages, so they take out their toolboxes and start repairing.

The front has taken the most hits, thankfully none of the glass shattered.

While he’s floating outside in space, in the dark vacuum of the universe, he thinks of the last time when he was out here with Keith instead of Matt; when he looked at him and felt his heart beating rapidly. He thinks about Keith floating in the universe, the stars behind him, and in his mind, Keith doesn’t wear his helmet, and his hair laps around his face while his eyes gaze at Shiro in a vulnerable haze. The thought of how beautiful Keith is crosses Shiro’s mind, and how this thought just never left his mind again.

They move quickly. Shiro needs to get back inside soon, look after Keith, look again if the quick departure did any damages to him. He takes a deep breath and shudders, looks back into the void universe and regrets not saying anything, regrets letting Keith slip away from him, and most of it all regrets his own fears of being pushed away.

*

_Sometimes dreaming is better than living it._

Sometimes living it is better because at least there’s death, and death is a way out. Keith doesn’t know if it’s a mix out of both, doesn’t know if dreaming of death means he could die. He, or—

It’s the memory of a morning, one specific sunrise that is still burnt into Keith’s memory. Rationally, he knows that there was no sunlight on the Castle of Lions, but the start of the day is wrapped in blinding white-yellow light.

Keith gets up and the adrenalin pushes in: The fight with Zarkon isn’t over, but Shiro is back, back here, back in the ship, back with him. He moves towards the kitchen, anxious to see him, because now he already knows it’s not Shiro, not really. It’s the clone.

One Paladin after another drops into the kitchen and gets breakfast. “He’s not up today either, huh?” Hunk says and gets an elbow into his ribcage from Pidge.

Allura looks to Keith, then lowers her eyes as soon as Keith looks up. “Our dear Shiro might need some more time to recover. Let him rest,” she says.

Keith says nothing – he remembers he said nothing back then, too.

It’s weird, just before, there was the memory of the fight with the clone, this time, he…

_He killed him._

Keith doesn’t eat, just stares at the sad bowl of food goo on the table.

The scene changes again – it’s right after they got him, it’s when Shiro couldn’t leave his bed for weeks.

“How many times will you save me until this is over?” the clone asks him.

“As many times as it takes,” Keith promises out of reflex. He will never stop believing Shiro is out there, he will never accept his death. He will never let go of him—

The memory is a harsh one, it’s too real—

He’s close to crying.

Before he leaves the room, he turns back. He takes a few steps back into the room, looking down on the clone who still lies in his bed and looks up to him, in wonder.

“I will save you, too,” he tells him, “you’re dear to me, too.”

The clone looks relieved but worried and confused at the same time.

“Tell me,” Keith says, afraid he pushes too much, but also afraid he doesn’t push enough, “tell me when you need me. I’ll be there.”

He first says nothing, then a soft “Keith.” He smiles a sad smile, as if he can’t fully believe him, or maybe, as if Keith’s words are in vain.

“Keith,” he speaks again, “I know you’re there for us. I’m at peace, now.”

The words don’t make any sense to Keith and he searches in his mind for the memory where he talked to him, where the clone answered this, but he comes up empty-handed.

The clone nods and looks at him endearingly like Keith is the only source of trust-

And it’s over again - the room starts to rumble, there are some cracks in the ceiling –

_For a second, Keith fears he changed something in the past,_

_Shiro vanishes, it’s getting bright again-_

_Two yellow glowing eyes in the dark._

He feels before he knows it.

“Haggar,” he whispers and hears in terror the thundering laugh of the witch coming closer.

“ **Red Paladin** ,” she screeches, “ ** _now_ I’ve got you!”**

Is it a memory? A dream? Reality—

It doesn’t matter. Keith doesn’t move, unable to do so, just like it was back then when they cornered the witch, sure of having her where they wanted her.

He grabs the sword tight, swings it, uses it – an instinct of him feeling the danger physically – but his body doesn’t follow him the way he wants to.

“I did an army of your _loved one_ ,” she screams, “and you still don’t have enough of my torture?”

Her words hurt, they screech in his ear, high pitched, shake him up from the inside.

“Why did you use him?” Keith shouts back, unwillingly to give in.

Haggar doesn’t answer at first – she’s everywhere around him but at the same time hidden in the dark. There’s everything and nothing of her _but_ the eyes. The _glowing_ yellow eyes.

“Because,” her whisper is right behind his ear,

“…it hurts _so_ much more.”

The shudder that runs over his back feels real – as real as Haggar’s face melting on her bones, dripping down to the uneven ground. Keith’s eyes follow the poodle of human skin forming to his feet.

When he looks up, there are pink eyes, a white tuft, otherwise black hair—

And a manic grin.

Keith is tired of shouting ‘no’, noise stuck in his throat. His legs for once obey him and he moves back. He’s tired of having his memory tolled with, of being played with by the Witch.

“Keith,” he hears Allura whisper, “it’s the Witches hallucination.”

“I know,” Keith screams back, and when he looks back, he sees Shiro, his Shiro, white hair and Altean arm, fighting another druid. Keith turns back and concentrates on the face of the clone.

 _‘It’s the Witch,’_ he whispers, concentrating despite having no concentration at all.

_“The Witch—”_

_“The Witch..”_

“ _It’s the Witch_ ,” he says, again and again, while the clone’s face stays manic.

“The witch-“

**Again and AGAIN**

“The witch, it’s the _damn_ witch.” His mind feels feverish.

“ **Kill me** ,” the clone shouts over him, demonic smile on his face, “ **you did it once, you can do it again—** “

“The Witch,” Keith whimpers, closes his eyes but he still sees it, the glowing eyes, the glowing arm, the mad quirk of lips, the vision of the Quantum Abyss, Shiro dying—

“KILL HER,” Shiro screams somewhere behind him, “ALLURA, KILL THE WITCH!”

Shiro’s voice pierces through the darkness, but its echo is only hollow to the ground.

“Say my name, Paladin,” shouts the Witch, voice thundering out of the clone’s mouth, “or are you afraid?”

Shiro’s screams fade under the growing growl in his head. The Witch. _The Witch._

The Witch. _The Witch._ It’s the Witch. _It’s Haggar_.

_____________

Two yellow eyes stare directly at his face. He almost jumps out of his bed, when he hears a deep purr coming from an area against his chest but relaxes at Kosmo’s whine next to him.

“What,” he says, looking into the cat’s face, his voice is so hoarse that he starts to cough.

The door opens and Matt walks in, face noncommitted until he sees that Keith’s eyes are open.

“Are you-“, he stops and stares, “you’re awake?”

“Yeah,” Keith rasps. He really needs a glass of water.

He looks around the room – it’s _his_ room on the ship, but some things have changed.

“What happened?” he asks Matt and softly pets the cat. Its yellow eyes are different from Haggars, but still frightening up close.

“I, uhm, I can get Shiro-“

“No, Matt-, wait,” Keith croaks, voice breaking, “please, what happened?”

“You, uh-“ he looks unsure, brushes some of his long hair out of his face and sits down on the chair next to the bed, “I only know what Shiro told me. You were both at the village where the time leak was, you and Shiro. Kosmo brought the others away, every last of them. We think they might have been affected as well.”

Keith nods. It feels like the memory has happened years ago, not just… _when_ exactly did that happen…?

“The ground was breaking beneath you two and Shiro contacted me through his arm. When I came to you, he was holding you, while you were veiled in yellow light.”

He stretches a bit. “You don’t remember?”

Keith shakes his head. Matt looks to the side, raises his brows.

“Anyway. There was a huge stream of pulsing bright light. We think that the Altean arm absorbed the time energy. If it didn’t, you would have been consumed by it.” He sighs deeply. It’s obvious that sleep deprivation and sadness wears off. “We thought you’re dying.” He doesn’t add the ‘again’. Keith holds his breath.

“Is Shiro alright?” It’s his only question.

“Can I bring him?” Matt asks him quietly. It dawns Keith just as quickly.

“You’ve been out of it for almost five weeks.”

Keith doesn’t hesitate a second. five weeks of not knowing if he would live or die – it’s even one day too much.

“Bring him,” he says weak, but fierce, “please, bring him.”

When Shiro comes in, he’s hesitant, too. He looks so young, and he is. Keith looks through his eyelashes, threatening to be asleep soon. The brown eyes in his face squint, then open wide in surprise, then he’s next to him, in only three steps and gently pulls him into a hug.

“You’re awake,” he says, a relieved statement, “you’re alive,” he murmurs in his ear and Keith shivers. “Yeah,” he answers, “I’m fine.” He hugs back, as hard as his weak body can. “You’re here,” he adds and takes it all in, Shiro’s smell, his warmth, his voice, his breath.

“I’m sorry- I did-“

“Stop,” Keith gently interrupts, unsure how to continue, “it can wait. Whatever we need to talk about.”

Shiro nods and hugs him tighter again.

“You have to tell me if you’re running out of air,” Shiro tells him and earns a snort.

“I will.”

Keith still needs to sleep – he doesn’t tell Shiro about the dreams first. Whenever he wakes, the cat is there, sometimes it sleeps on his chest, sometimes he wakes to her kneading on his chest. He feels better with the animal present and can’t explain why.

Shiro tells him he contacted Krolia, told her about him feeling better. Keith feels sorry for worrying her in the first place, but it’s also _Krolia_ , his badass space mom who brings herself into danger with any given chance. She’ll be fine.

Neither Matt or Shiro tell him about the attack immediately – they tell him they need to land soon, to refill and check somewhere safe for any greater damages on the ship, so they take a parking spot at a smaller galaxy station. Matt pilots the ship, while Shiro sits next to Keith, and they talk about nothing or everything. Shiro holds his hands sometimes, unnamed bravery that they both can’t explain. Keith doesn’t know how to interpret it, but he’s come to the conclusion that he’s done looking for signs – but not done with Shiro. He’ll never be done with him. He’ll be his friend if needed.

Keith knows what it means when someone confesses three times and there’s no answer. He overcame a lot,

he’ll overcome this, too.

“I don’t know why I thought you’d die,” Shiro tells him, “whereas you never stopped believing that I’ll always come out alive.”

Keith doesn’t know what answer to give to that. Maybe there’s something wrong with his brain, that he couldn’t give up on a man who’s been declared dead, who had an expiration date the day they first met. Maybe it’s blind love and rage. He doesn’t know.

“If I gave up on you back then, when you were declared dead,” he murmurs, feelings high on some neutralizing medication, “I would have just died.”

It’s heavy, but it’s also in the past. Keith’s mouth is in a thin line, thinking he told too much, fearing Shiro’s afraid. He’s his own person and growing up taught him how to live without someone. Although the thought of ever being without Shiro is the most painful one. It’s all fine if Shiro’s there and he’s his friend.

Matt sticks his head through the door.

“Another 15 vargas and we’ll reach the space station,” he informs them, looks back and forth between them and pulls back within seconds like he’s interfering something.

Maybe he is.

It’s the first time Keith dresses to go outside the ship and he’s still feeling too weak to put his spacesuit on. It’s not especially heavy, but heavier than their normal clothes. Shiro helps him with it.

“I want us to, uh,” Shiro starts while lifting up one of the chest armor pieces for Keith to put on, “relax when we’re at the station. We don’t have much time to lose since we’re skipping two destinations anyways.”

Keith nods and thinks of all the talks Shiro must have done with the Garrison to inform them about what happened. And the paperwork that needed to be done because of him.

“I also wanted to ask you, oh-“, Shiro drops a piece and now Keith notices that he’s nervous, “I mean, I asked Matt already if he’s searching us a mechanic, and helping to refill and he said he’d take care of it…,” Shiro scratches the back of his head and won’t meet his eye, “and we could just hang out.”

Keith is baffled, unsure of what to say, other than “Alright”.

Shiro has gone back to his room and Keith goes to the control room, feels glad about the change for once. Matt lolls in his seat while pushing some buttons. There’s a familiar notebook in his hands and Keith squints while Matt is looking through it.

“Is that my sketchbook?” he asks from looking over Matt’s shoulder who startles in response.

“Uh, oh, I just thought it was okay too look through,” Matt answers and lowers it. It’s a page of a sketch of a beefy male torso – Keith quickly takes it from Matt’s hands and stuffs it back under his seat.

“I didn’t know you like to draw,” Matt’s voice is low, “especially big and muscular beefcakes seem to spark your creativity.” He ends on a grin, that’s way too similar to Pidges’.

Keith looks like he’s been slapped in the face. “What?”

Matt ignores him. “I hope you’re thankful that I’m doing your work,” he states.

“What?”

Matt spins the chair around and looks over the backrest. “I mean for yours and Shiro’s date.”

Keith’s brain halts in his tracks. Matt is messing with him, although he just woke up. He slumps into Shiro’s seat, arm’s crossed in front of his body. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s nice to be in love,” Matt whistles, “I wish I’d be that carefree.” He crosses his arms behind his head and leans back, puts his feet up on the console.

“We’re not carefree,” Keith mumbles.

“Good thing you ditched that dumb ex of yours,” Matt says more to himself than to Keith. He still hears it, snaps his head to him. “Who told you? Shiro?”

“Shiro doesn’t tell me a word how about his sad pining life, even though I’m walking in on you both holding hands and staring at each other _all the damn time_. Veronica swore to never tell anyone. That’s why I know it from Pidge – she knows from Lance, who in turn, knows from Veronica.”

Keith massages his forehead. “Could you drop it?”

“Nah,” Matt looks at him, “I need some fun. I’m doomed to getting an earful of Dad and Katie for the wrecked space ship as soon as I’m home. So, I don’t know, yolo. Literally, I tell you.”

There’s no arguing with Matt – Keith can’t believe that Shiro survived months on a ship with him before. But maybe he was more respectful back then – maybe he hid his snarky remarks more, who knows.

Keith gets up, but he’s wobbly on his legs and almost falls to his front, but Matt catches him last second. “Shit, shit, sorry, Keith. I didn’t know you’re still recovering. Shit.” He puts him back into Shiro’s seat and gives him a glass of water. “I’m sorry. I hope the date will be fun.”

Keith feels like preserving his energy is more important than to correct him.

The space station feels like a mingle-mangle of outer space life. The whole unstable construction of a spacey parking station, gas station, and a few restaurants and other facilities hangs to one side of a small burned out asteroid, which practically isn’t a planet – so no atmosphere to walk around in. But inside, most aliens don’t wear their space suits, zero gravity is deactivated, and everything is gaudy and gay. Keith is harshly reminded of the bright colors of the space mall, but equally excited to finally be off the ship for once.

“Do you think it’s good to leave Matt behind with the ship? Since he, uh, screwed his families’?” he asks his companion.

Shiro snorts and turns to him. His Altean arm is missing, but he’s looking good, and more light-hearted than the last days on the ship. “It’ll be okay, Keith,” he gives his spacesuit to an Unilu at the checkroom. “He’ll be fine.”

Keith trusts him, gives his suit to the same Unilu and carefully turns back to him.

“Now what?”

“You know, I kind of missed out on a lot back when were together with the other Paladins,” Shiro starts, voice shy, “we could just wander around and look into whatever seems good?”

It then happens, _like in slow motion_. Keith stares at Shiro’s hand that lifts a little and tries to grab for his. He jolts back from the possible touch.

Shiro gaps at him, head red, embarrassed.

“Let’s go there first,” he suggests, pointing with his head into the direction of a big water fountain. Keith nods, mind in a jumble. _What did that mean? Was he going for his hand? Should he take his? Does he think Keith rejected him-_

“Krolia told me they have good pancakes,” Shiro says, seemingly unfazed as if the thing that just happened didn’t happen. He grabs a brochure from a clerk and looks at the listed places and restaurants. “She mentioned them often, I think it’s her favorite Earth food.”

“I think it’s the only food Dad could cook,” Keith counters, recovering from what just happened. He doesn’t know how he’s still brave enough to do this, but almost dying multiple times maybe brings out the will to do things before they are unfinished business.

“Shiro,” he says, “could you support me? I’m still feeling weak.”

Shiro looks to him, eyes wide and surprised, “I’m sorry, I didn’t notice. Should I hold you under your arm, or-“

“Maybe your hand is enough for now,” Keith’s voice is steady – Shiro’s cheeks tint red.

His fingers slide into his palm, grabbing it firm for a moment, and then holding onto it. Nobody cares about them here, nobody throws them a second glance, they are just two creatures full of hearts in the whole wide universe. Keith can’t believe he’s so bold, can’t believe they are here, finally getting through all the hardships.

Shiro looks at him from time to time while they are wandering down the aisles, looking at shops and restaurants. Sometimes it’s looking weirdly Earth-like just like they’ve never left their home planet at all, but then instead of a milkshake, it’s a galaxy-shake, that you drink through your toes instead of your mouth. Or there seemingly hangs a normal, colorful scarf, but it’s one that moves around your throat like a snake.

Their hands are locked, but Shiro doesn’t know where they are and what is okay to do yet – and he slowly realizes that it must have been a drag, having him here, next to Keith, always indecisive, always on the passive. But instead of feeling sorry, he should focus on how to make things right.

“Do you want something to eat?” he asks Keith, who shrugs, then smiles.

“Yeah, why not?”

They get something that looks a lot like the mini-pancakes that you’d get in the Netherlands but don’t taste a whole lot like it. Shiro’s face wrinkles in disgust, whereas Keith just swallows it down.

“How can you just…eat it?”

“Guess whose burnt omelets I had to eat for years,” Keith explains, voice dry, grin big.

Shiro laughs out. “I can’t believe you!“ he’s playing devastated, “My omelets now are much _much_ better, but guess who won’t get any of them?”

“Oh no. I’m missing out,” Keith teases him. There’s a spark in his eyes that can’t be missed – Shiro’s breath gets caught in his chest and he starts coughing instead of getting out a witty comeback.

“Hey,” Keith pats his back, “are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he coughs, teary-eyed, “’m fine.”

They walk to the next booth, getting something to drink – Keith recognizes the ‘Vrepit Sal’s’ food chain booth in another corner. He turns to Shiro. “I’ll pay,” he says, but Shiro protests. The Arusian handling the beverage stand in front of them blinks between the two of them, friendly and awaiting.

“No, it’s okay, Shiro. You’ve paid the food,” he insists.

“Uh, it’s just,” he stumbles over his words, “you, uhm, I wanted to…”

The Arusian quietly coughs, unheard.

“I just maybe, uhm, I could invite you to a date?” he smiles shyly and hands over the money. Keith takes the drinks in a daze. “What?”

“—Or we just get food and drinks like friends?” he quickly corrects, shoulders sinking.

“No, what? Wait, what, Shiro?” Keith says and pulls him out of the line of the beverage booth, so they don’t talk about that in front of the Arusian vendor.

Shiro stands in front of him, looks down to Keith holding both of their drinks.

“I want a date with you,” he tells him. “I really do,” he adds with a hint of pink on his cheeks. Keith doesn’t react first, stares at him and grips the drinks tight in his hands.

“A date.”

“A date,” Shiro reaffirms.

He has been waiting for Shiro to get out of the daze post-war, out of the status quo they’ve been harboring. Out of himself. And then, it’s there, right in front of him, Shiro giving it a chance, or having his mind made up. Keith knows what brought the change, knows it must be seeing his friend down on the bed, unmoving, dying. He felt like that too, before. And it made him aware of how much he loves Shiro, too.

If Shiro gives them a chance, there’s no universe where he’s not taking it.

“Yeah,” Keith breathes, “yeah, let’s do it.”

“Yeah?” Shiro asks and takes one of the drinks from him. His face is soft, unbelieving as if he doesn’t deserve the world. As if he doesn’t deserve Keith.

He’s ready to give it to him _all_.

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/CruelisB) & [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cruelisblue) and scream with me about Sheith in space!
> 
> ______________________________________________  
> If you liked this, I'd be overjoyed if you left a comment! I welcome:  
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> \- constructive criticism! (Please take into account if the work is old/recent, and that I'm not a native speaker/ that I'm doing this as a hobby in my free time :)  
> So please voice your criticism politely; but I do absolutely welcome it!)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/CruelisB) & [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cruelisblue) and tell me your hc about Sheith in Space~
> 
> If you like this fic, you can promote it through retweeting [this tweet here](https://twitter.com/CruelisB/status/1151584442135318528?s=19). Thanks!
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> ______________________________________________  
> If you liked this, I'd be overjoyed if you  
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> \- give long comments  
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